Unlike A printed works afterword, which typically summarizes for the reader highlights of the text preceding it and delivers the final word on what came before, an epilogue, with its associations with the dynamic space of the theater rather than the static printed page, typically involves a character in the performance stepping outside the world of the play and suggesting how the action will continue. In contrast, the characters of textual mediathose chiseled into stone, written on a page, printed on paper, or even formed on a screentypically are thought of as literally the final word. Human characters
