Kelly is an instructor of literature and creative writing at Oakton Community College and the College of Lake County. In the following essay, he explores the ways in which de Hartog has the characters in his play struggle for their freedom from each other, even as the play makes it clear that they belong together.

Much can be said for the range of human interaction that Jan de Hartog packs into his small play, The Fourposter. The play's scope is small, with only two characters and one set, but it captures thirty-five years of the struggles of a marriage, swooping easily between the extremes of joy and bitterness, anger and compassion. It is a comedy in the strictest sense of the word because everything turns out fine in the end, but even so it leaves open the question of whether or not its subjects, Michael and Agnes...