Amy's View by David Hare

How do the characters cope with loss in the play, ‘Amy’s View’ by David Hare?

David Hare’s ‘Amy’s View’ was a political play that reflected the governmental reforms and societal changes that Britain was going through at that point in time. Taking into consideration that this play was written during one of Britain’s most tumultuous period, it is inevitable that the characters in this play will not only have to cope with the death of loved ones but also with the loss of several other things that they held dear, such as the theatre, family values, British identity and so on. Even though not all characters were affected by all of these factors, all characters were left to grapple with loss of one kind or another.
The loss of a dear one is something that mostly Esme and Dominic have to deal with. As for Esme, she begins the play as someone who is coping with the death of her husband Bernard. In her case, she endures his loss by clinging onto and surrounding herself with memories of him. As the stage directions of Act 1 shows, the walls of Esme’s living room are filled with the paintings by Bernard “...home of an artist, Bernard Thomas, and all around the room is evidence of his work…”. Moreover, her memories of Bernard and perhaps the fact that she’s almost always thinking about him can be seen from how she talks about him in the midst of a conversation. In Act 1 where she tells Amy “… if they’d said to me, you’ll live ten years longer than Bernard…” and in Act 4 when she tells Dominic that “… it was just chance [she’d] met Bernard… [and that] with him [she] felt whole…”.   A better example to use would be on pg. 73 when she says wistfully, “Bernard’s not here. Bernard is dead.” What do you make of this?   Moreover, she also isolates herself from other people; other than the work that she does in theatre, Evelyn also says that “.. She doesn’t see anyone..” Above all, it can also be said that Esme sub-consciously copes with the loss of Bernard by rejecting Dominic. For...