Script Notes: Response to change and the notion of progress

In the end Chris recognizes that the old way of life is finished. Her father also recognized the change in the times, but was unable to change with it. Others in the community, who have seen only short term advantage, are ruined by the slump which follows the war. The large farms swallow the small, the land has been ruined by the removal of its sheltering trees, and instead of growing crops is fit only for grazing sheep. The promise of revival through new farming techniques based on new machine technology proves hollow. The final image of the community is of ruin: old men, widows whose husbands have been killed in the war, and awkward youngsters working for hire on the larger farms, with no personal connection to Kinraddie. "Progress" is frequently depicted as a phrase used to justify thoughtless destruction.

Chris herself has a very deep response to the idea of change, a response both emotional and imaginative. At school she learns about an ancient Greek philosophy, that all things change and nothing endures forever. The idea occurs to her repeatedly, often associated with strange visionary perceptions of her former selves vanishing into the past as accident, time and chance alter the course of her life. Even the land changes - although somehow there is a sense that deep underneath it has an eternal stability.