At the beginning of The Burning of Rags we are thrown straight into the heart of the play, a situation which reveals the death of Maltilda, Denis’ former wife as she remains, even in the afterlife, unhappy because her son, Yona, has not been circumcised. Her apparition appears to Agala, Denis’ father, displaying her displeasure at his and Denis’s failure to circumcise her son; she claims to have carried out the act herself. She says, “When you and your son failed me, I circumcised him myself.”