The Year of Magical Thinking Lesson Plan

Why does Didion reread the play Alcestis and include a discussion of its plot in Chapter 12? What is the significance of the play to the book?

Didion rereads Alcestis when she is meditating on the concept of the divide between life and death. In the play, a young king is sentenced to death, but Apollo intercedes and says another person can die in his place. His wife, Alcestis, volunteers, and the king is overcome with guilt. In the end, she is allowed to return to the living, but she cannot speak after being in the underworld. Didion says when she first read the play she though this was a happy ending, and that Alcestis did not speak by choice. However now, Didion realizes...