Instances
of the Number 3
4th
Estate August 2001
When
Peter Hansome dies it is not an end but a beginning. The beginning
of a new understanding for his wife, Bridget, his mistress Frances
and, most of all, for Peter himself.
In
a sense, 'Instances of the Number 3' is part of a tradition
of English ghost stories. Peter's ghost, like a much more famous
one in literature, the ghost of Hamlet's father, is, we learn
still here for a purpose. In his life he has made errors of
judgment which have affected those he leaves behind. And in
the gap between this world and the next he must lean the meaning
of his mistakes.
His
wife, Bridget, is a lover of Shakespeare and it is through her
thoughts about Hamlet, and the ghost who visits him, that she
comes to understand her dead husband. We learn that Peter is
in purgatory, the place where in the old religion humankind
were 'purged' or cleansed of their sins so that they might enter
the knigdom of heaven.
In
taking the old pre-Reformation idea of purgatory I was, rather
like Shakespeare, using a literal idea as a metaphor, for
the
way in which our attitude to the past can affect it. The old
idea was that by praying for the dead you could shorten their
time in purgatory. Bridget, through thinking about Hamlet,
and talking to her dead husband, releases him from his own
misdemeanours
and comes to a deeper understanding of herself. Our memories
of the past - or the dead - affect our present lives and 'Instances
of the Number 3' explores this idea and the liberating possiblities
of forgiveness.. Life and death are not simply physical states
of being: they are metaphors for states of being, or the
way we take life. And maybe the barriers between life and
death
are more permeable than we, in our super-rational age, suppose...
--
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