Editing Come and Go (section)

==Interpretations==
The whole play's structure is circular (ring-like). It is divided into three exactly equal segments of seven lines during which a character exits and comes back in after completing their circuit, taking a different seat to the one they sat on originally. In this sense the characters also move around their seats in a ring shape.

Some speculate as to what the characters are discussing. From each response (Ru: (about Vi), "Does she not realise?" Vi: (about Flo), "Has she not been told?" Flo: (about Ru), "Does she not know?")<ref>Beckett, S., ''Collected Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), pp 194,195</ref> it is not unreasonable to assume that each, perhaps, is in fact terminally ill but unaware of the fact. "The unspoken nature of the condemnation in the final version is more powerful [than in ''Human Wishes'' (see below)] precisely because it is less explicit. For while it leaves a mystery unresolved, it also tends to lead one beyond the particular illness of an individual woman to embrace the fate of all mankind."<ref>Knowlson, J. and Pilling, J., ''Frescoes of the Skull'' (London: John Calder, 1979), pp 121,122</ref> Other possibilities include a yet to be made public death or some other tragedy involving a personal connection to whatever is whispered for the absent character being whispered about.

The play might be seen as a [[coming of age]] situation. Vi yearns for the "old days",<ref name="Beckett, S. 1984 p 195"/> presumably when there were no awful secrets to tell but, at the same time, to which all three characters know there is no return. On one level "there is a sense of loss in the play, that the women will never regain the intimacy they once had together". Brenda Bynum, who has directed the play, feels the opposite, however: ‘Why does it have to be that ''they'' have lost something, why can it not be Beckett's longing for intimacy that they have and he can’t?’"<ref>Brenda Bynum interviewed by Lois Overbeck, ''Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives'' (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), p 52</ref> Anthony Roche agrees: "[T]hey assert a strength through their interdependence which makes this play one of the most perfect theatrical ensembles ever devised."<ref>Roche, A., Samuel Beckett:The Great Plays After Godot in ''Samuel Beckett – 100 Years'' (Dublin: New Island, 2006), p 69</ref>

The joining of the hands evokes the symbol for [[infinity]]. "The [[ritual]] gesture of clasped hands allows them to keep their secrets from each other, but the feeling of the rings evokes the cycle of time. Twice turned upon itself, the bond of the three women (forever linked in their untold secrets) is never again what it was, never again what it seems to be. Something is the same, and everything is different."<ref>Overbeck, L. M., "Getting On" Ritual as Façon in Beckett's Plays, in Burkman, K. H., (Ed.) ''Myth and Ritual in the Plays of Samuel Beckett'' (London and Toronto: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987), p 25</ref> "Superficially they make us think of the [[Charites|Three Graces]] as they link hands, but, more precisely, they resemble in appearance the three mothers in [[Fritz Lang]]'s ''[[M (1931 film)|M]]'', a film much loved by Beckett."<ref>Knowlson, J. and Pilling, J., ''Frescoes of the Skull'' (London: John Calder, 1979), p 122</ref>

Whereas at the start of the play there is a reluctance to talk of the past, after each of the shocking revelations the three women willingly drift off into [[nostalgia]]<ref>"Davis's discontinuity hypothesis ... states that nostalgia is an emotional reaction to discontinuity in people's lives. Stated alternatively, people who experience disruption in their lives will rate the past more favourably than those who experience continuity. <br> What are the sources of discontinuity? We would speculate that they include death of a loved one, health deterioration, relationship breakup or divorce, occupational crises (e.g., layoffs), and drops in standards of living. What are the emotional or existential consequences of discontinuity? Davis named "fears, discontents, anxieties, or uncertainties" (Davis, F. (1979). ''Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia'', New York: Free Press, p 34). We would add loneliness, alienation, and fear of death to the list. Nostalgia, then, is a coping mechanism for dealing with these highly uncomfortable psychological states." - Sedikedes, C., Wildschut, T. and Baden, D., Nostalgia: Conceptual Issues and Existential Functions, ''Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology'', Jeff Greenberg, Ed.</ref> as a means of coping with the present.

The rings that Flo says she feels "may be imagined a symbol of the frustrated hopes of youth, of marriages that never occurred [or failed] or equally their eternal union"<ref>Ackerley, C. J. and Gontarski, S. E., (Eds.) ''The Faber Companion to Samuel Beckett'', (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), p104</ref> that has kept them together throughout their personal tragedies. Or, perhaps, these women meet/exist outside of time and whatever rings they might have once worn have disappeared along the way.

"Ethereal though the women of ''Come and Go'' might be, they are substantial personae in comparison with the [[Ghost#Terminology|wraith]]-like beings of the ‘[[supplication]] plays.’ And painful though the shock to their sensibilities has been, they have the comforting presence of each other to offset their sadness. They comprise a community, and are therefore not wholly reliant on memory to remedy or sedate. No such comfort is available in the later dramaticules, however, where night after night alienated beings implore their loved ones to make their presence felt."<ref>Brown, V., ''[http://etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-03022006-154713/unrestricted/thesis.pdf Yesterday’s Deformities: A Discussion of the Role of Memory and Discourse in the Plays of Samuel Beckett] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927031555/http://etd.unisa.ac.za/ETD-db/theses/available/etd-03022006-154713/unrestricted/thesis.pdf |date=September 27, 2007 }}'', (doctoral thesis) p 223</ref>