Wise Men, camels, owls, and other creatures that she sees in her head and feels compelled to make real. As the play begins, her friend Elsa has just arrived unexpectedly, having driven frantically from her home 10 hours away in response to a letter Helen wrote that greatly alarmed Elsa. She discovers that Helen is on the brink of giving in to pressure from the local pastor, Marius Byleveld, and others in the town to move into a nursing home. Helen has become a virtual recluse, with Marius and a black girl from the village, Katrina, being virtually only the people she sees with any regularity.
Fugard's stage directions describe Miss Helen as being "in her late sixties" (p. 1), but the evidence within the text of the play helps pinpoint her age more precisely: she was about 12 at her confirmation, which she and Marius guess took place around 1920 (pp. 49-50). This would place the year of her birth at 1908, and, since the play takes place in 1974, she is now approximately 66. In the view of many of those around her, Helen is elderly and starting to lose her ability to care for herself. This in their view is a crucial loss, but it is not the first of the bereavements that have begun to characterize Helen's life.
Harriet Rzetelny categorizes the four primary losses that are part of the process of growing older (1985, pp. 142-143), all of which Helen faces. The first is the aging process itself. Helen's eyesight is starting to deteriorate, a natural phenomenon of getting older, but a troubling one, especially for someone who is afraid of the dark and who relies on her eyesight to fulfill her inner artistic vision. She may also be suffering from arthritis, though she has become too fearful that it may be something more serious to have herself properly diagnosed. This is a fear often present in the elderly.
The second loss that Helen faces is of her health. More than the common aches and pains that come from the wearing d...