Three Classical Unities

In The Browning Version, Rattigan utilizes the unities for drama, as outlined by Aristotle in Poetics. The first unity is setting. The story is confined to one setting, the front room of the Crocker-Harris flat in 1948 at a public school in the southern part of England. The room is "gloomy," but the stage directions also indicate that it "is furnished with chintzy and genteel cheerfulness." By restricting the actions and intense emotions to this room, the confined nature of Andrew's repressed emotions and feelings and his cloying, damaged marriage are highlighted.

The second and third unities are time and action. The whole of The Browning Version takes place in less than one day. Indeed here, the story's timeline is only a few hours, emphasizing the story's intensity and the swiftness of change. The action is linear—there is only one very focused plot line. It concerns...