The Mental Effects of Military Service

The play’s story is, on a fundamental level, defined by its exploration of the deterioration of The Pilot’s mental and emotional state: its events, and particularly its climax, are what they are as a result of The Pilot having lost healthy perspective on herself, on her situation, and on the world. She begins the play clear about who she is and what she wants. That said, her perspective is unarguably limited and defined by circumstances that are themselves defined by a military context. It is important to remember that The Pilot has been trained by an organization operatating from a particular set of premises about how a service person should think, feel, and behave, whether on duty or off. There is the very clear sense that throughout the narrative, The Pilot strives to live according to those premises.

There...