Trudell is an independent scholar with a bachelor's degree in English literature. In the following essay, Trudell explores the meaning of breathing and loss of breath in Habitat.
Perhaps Thompson's most important motif in Habitat is breathing. Throughout the play, she calls attention to the breathing patterns of her characters along with their abnormalities in breathing. Breathing provides a kind of rhythm for the play; it helps to define the mood and meaning of each scene and informs the audience when tension is building or decreasing. This is why the key crises of the play—Cath's inability to speak as she is dying, Lewis's brother's death, and Raine's recollection of her near-death experience as an infant—are defined by strained breathing, rapid breathing, or an inability to breathe at all.
In her introduction to the 2001 Playwrights.....
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