What is the thematic pre-occupation of the play

Atonement is a major theme of the play. The Dead Man and Dead Woman are brought back to the land of the living so that the four mortals who mistreated them in the past will recognize their former sins and atone. While the mortals spend a great deal of the play unaware of this, they eventually realize that the purpose of the Dead Man and Dead Woman's visitation is to teach them a lesson, and by the end, they go through a kind of conversion, understanding that they have sinned before.