ABSTRACT
Spillway replaces humour with a persistent awareness of human isolation and (self) estrangement that is more akin to Nightwood and The Antiphon. This chapter focuses on three tales – 'Aller et Retour', 'The Doctors' and 'The Rabbit' – and follows the intersection of these thematic strands within the tales. It explores the attitude to death that is the most prominent of these. The chapter assesses the impact that the individual characters' conceptualisations of death make on their world views. Spillway examines the ways in which the individual's attitude to death informs their self-construction, and their response to social convention. All three of the tales recognise the importance of the approach to death as a factor in defining and gendering individual identity. The stories also demonstrate the difficulty of communication between individuals, particularly within marriage or between children and their parents, a point developed fully in The Antiphon.
