Some Arcadian Questions: and Answers
Abstract
The offstage death of Thomasina Coverly in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia can not be accepted as an accident and must be a suicide related to her Rabbit Equation and to the fate of Septimus the hermit. The equation leads Thomasina to Einstein’s spacetime continuum and thus to his conclusion that time is an illusion and so is death:This is why she says “Oh, phooey to Death!” and “Oh, pooh to Hobbes!” By dying she escapes her delightful mother’s plans to marry her off and forever relives her 17 years of life, including carnal embrace with Septimus.