Look both ways by Sarah Watt and William McGuiness explores the experience of death to be universal; whilst keeping peoples reactions to it recognized and separate. The Collins dictionary defines the term ‘death’ as the permanent end of all life functions in an organism or part of an organism. Look both ways portrays death as a common factor of life; Sarah Watt achieves this when the audience is exposed to the Arnow hill train crash, the horrific aftermath of Rob’s death and even the death of Meryl and Nick’s fathers. Although look both ways proves that we will all come across loss in our time it also emphasizes the differences in our responses to it which greatly depend on our circumstances and our state of affairs.
Look both ways demonstrates that the way people react to death depends on the individual. Although every character was affected by death in some way each characters reaction to it differed. After her fathers death and witnessing Rob’s death Meryl Lee was shocked and numb. She suffered from anxiety which led to her continuous thoughts of death. Before meeting Nick she was very lonely and spent most of her time painting. Her paintings where a resemblance of her internal life. Being with Nick meant that she was no longer lonely and for her anxiety this was a good thing for Meryl. Her life went from going down hill with nothing to look forward too being happy and stable again with nick in her life. “maybe it was meant to be” this is the final thing that Meryl says that turns her life around.
After finding out he has cancer Nick began to value life more. He reflected on everything that had occurred in his life that may have been the cause of his terminal illness. “There’s always someone worse off” Nick tries to look at other people who have worse circumstances to make his situation feel less severe. Just like Meryl’s experience of seeing death everywhere Nick also is constantly imagining cancer. He finds it difficult to tell his mother as it is...