125
Chapter III. The Family Reunion
The play opens in the drawing room of a country house
called Wishwood in northern London on the sixtieth birthday of
Amy, Dowager Monchensey. Her younger sisters Violet, Ivy,
Agatha, brothers of her deceased husband Gerald and Charles
have gathered to celebrate it. Amy's dialogue reveals that
Wishwood winters are cold; she is cold; she fears a sudden
death before what she would like to accomplish.
Her youngest
sister Agatha replies that Wishwood was always a cold place
which reminds that it is always a sterile house without any
love between the family members.
Charles comments that modern
young men are decadent and irresponsible; because of cocktails
and cigarettes. Gerald comes to the defence of young men; the
world has become difficult for them. They ask the opinion of
Mary, relative of Amy, about this because she' belongs to the
new generation.
Mary tells that she does not belong to any
generation and walks away from drawing room. This conversation
betrays lack of understanding between the old and the yoimg
generation, Wishwood resists change, and Amy will not allow
any change. Her reluctance to changes stresses the necessity
of change.
Charles gives explanation for Mary's blunt behaviour; she
is nearing thirty and ought to have been married. Mary was
brought to Wishwood to be an obedient wife of Amy's first son
Lord Harry Monchensey.
Amy says she could have been married
if every thing had happened as she thought.
another woman.
Mary.
But Harry married
Return of Harry to Wishwood was upsetting
Amy makes an important statement; she wants to keep
126
Wishwood alive and keep together the members of Wishwood,
before death attacks.
She expects death at any moment: And
death will come to you as mild surprise): 'A momentary shudder
in a vacant room' .^ Here we get the first clue of
roots of the play.
Orestiae
Amy fears death, as Clytemnestra did from
her son Orestes. She had murdered her husband Agamemnon, with
the help of her lover Aegisthus. It was prophesied that
Orestes, her son will avenge the murder of his father. Amy
makes one more diabolic statement.
Only Agatha seems to discover some meaning in death
which I can not find. (CPP P. 287)
Agatha, the younger sister of Amy, does not give any
answer; this gives a clue to the first play of Aeschylus'
trilogy Agamemnon where Cassandra, the captive prophetess.from
Troy, gives no answer to Clytemnestra's invitation into the
palace for family sacrifice. Clytemnestra asks to give some
^sign', if she is unable to speak Greek.
Amy reveals that her three sons- Harry, Arthur and John
would arrive; she would have her birthday cake and her
presents after dinner.
The day has provided a special
occasion because they are all assembling after eight years.
Harry is returning to Wishwood after 'eight' years.
The word
"Eight years after" takes us back to Orestes myth.
According
to the Greek myth Agamemnon was murdered by his own wife and
her paramour.
Her son Orestes returned after eight years of
exile and killed his mother to avenge his father's murder. We
get a hint that Amy may die when Harry returns to Wishwood.
Since Wishwood is a 'cold place' haunted by a curse, death
looms over the place. 'On him that doeth, it shall be done'.^
The killing of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes is a
divine ordain prophesied by Cassandra.
it is better to know.
^ Eliot. T.S., Complete Poems and Plays (London: Faber and Faber,
1975) p, 287.
^ Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940)
p, 192.
127
at this juncture, to refer to 'the curse on the house of
Atreus' to have a better understanding of this 'cryptic
Christian play' inspired by Aeschylus' trilogy Ores
tela.
Atreus and Thrystes were brothers; the elders of Argos
selected Atreus to be their King. Thrystes opposed this and
seduced the wife of Atreus. Atreus became angry and he exiled
Thrystes.
own.
Thrystes was rearing Atreus' son Pleisthenes as his
He sent Pleisthenes, (Atreus' son) to Argos, to kill his
father. Without knowing the true identity of Pleisthenes,
Atreus got his own son killed. When this treachery was known
to Atreus, he invited Thrystes to Argos for reconciliation. In
a banquet he served the cooked meat of Thrystes' young sons to
their own father. According to Greek sentiment, killing of the
young and the weak is the mindless violence beyond limit'hubrys'. It incurs the 'dyke', the divine retribution: the
curse on the house of Atreus by Greek god Artemis. The house
of Atreus was given over to furies where crimes would be
committed in a chain to bring misfortune on the inhabitants of
the house. Thus the sins of the father visit on their sons and
make them to commit new crimes to avenge the old ones. Atreus
was killed by Thrystes' son Aegisthus. Atreus' son Agamemnon
became king of Argos. He fought the famous Trojan War and
returned to Argos. On the same day he was murdered by his wife
Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Agamemnon's son Orestes
returned to Argos after eight years and killed his mother.
This would go on endlessly till the last of the Atreus stock,
Orestes, surrendered himself to Zeus, expiated the sin by
suffering and pilgrimage, faced trial by Aeropagus and was
acquitted of his crime. The feud between the two families and
its deliverance is the story of the great Greek classical
trilogy. Ores tela.
Orestes sought the end of the curse by
surrendering his will to the will of God, after suffering and
pilgrimage which is the theme of all the plays of T.S. Eliot.
Both Oresteia
and The Family Reunion
have a murder, vengeance
128
and trial; but in Eliot's play they are only metaphoric or
symbolic.
Amy is happy that her son Harry is returning to
Wishwood.
Contrary to Amy's mood Agatha feels that:
It is going to be painful for Harry
After eight years and all that happened
To come back to Wishwood. (CPP. P. 288)
Again this comment of Agatha takes us back to Orestes
myth. The prophetess Cassandra speaks prophesy; ^the house is
given over to the spirit of vengeance, phantom children, their
palms filled with their own flesh, are crying for revenge and
another crime will bring fresh stain on the house'. All that
happened on the outer plane refers to death of Harry's wife,
whom Harry thinks that he has killed her by pushing down to
sea. It also refers to death of his father in exile. Harry
will be responsible for Amy's death. Will it please him? So
it is going to be painful for Harry. Thus a death is foretold
in Wishwood. This shows Amy had no love for her husband. Her
cruel dominance at Wishwood made him to die in exile
Coming back to Wishwood is itself painful because it is a
haunted place. None, who lived there, were happy.
It is an
asylum of ghosts, as described by David Jones. The name
Wishwood is probably symbolic, in the opinion of Roy Batten
House:
The name Wishwood i s to stand for u n i v e r s a l man's
Dream house, located in a wood of wish, memory,
turned t o , by a man for refuge, but discovered to be
only an asylum for ghosts.^
Agatha further explains her reason why Harry's a r r i v a l i s
p a i n f u l . What ever happened in Wishwood i s i r r e v o c a b l e ;
unhappy childhood, mysterious circiomstances leading to h i s
f a t h e r ' s death, and more than anything, aftermath of t h i s
knowledge w i l l drive him away from Wishwood; because i t
is
r e s p o n s i b l e for Harry's predicament. This has an exact
Eliot's
the Family Reunion
a s C h r i s t i a n prophecy Christendom v o l .
X No 3 . (Summer 1945) p 317 RPT David E J o n e s , The Play's of T.S.
Eliot
(London: E a r n e s t Benn Ltd, 1965) P
129
parallel in Orestes' myth. When Orestes returned to Argos,
the first place he visited was his father Agamemnon's tomb.
The plight of his elder sister Electra together with the
memories of his father's death resolves him to the decision of
murdering his mother Clytemnestra. Matricide is an
unpardonable sin, for the heinous act of which furies will
torture him; this will be very much painful. Agatha's words
are prophetic:
And thought to creep back through the little door
He will find a new Wishwood. Adaptation is hard.
(CPP.P, 288)
Harry might be thinking that at Wishwood he would be
happy, after his Wife's death, suffering, and eight years of
wandering in Europe. But he will find that Wishwood is the
source of his entire predicament.
His coming back is the
symbolic expression of Amy's murder. Its parallel can be foimd
in Orestes myth. Orestes enters the palace, the accursed
Atridae, given over to furies to avenge Atreus' crimes,
commits matricide and runs away being chased by furies.
Amy contends Agatha that nothing has been changed. Harry
will find everything as it was, when he left Wishwood. Agatha
then explains that, Harry is coming after suffering and is a
changed person. He comes to Wishwood to know about his
parents.
This knowledge will transform Harry.
The new Harry
will not find Wishwood as a happy place, because there for
him, ^the hidden will be revealed, and the spectre shows
them'. (CPP.P.289); spectre- the appearance of Eumenides will
be shown right inside Wishwood. In Orestes myth, in
Choephorie,
Electra revealed the infidelity of her mother, and
her immoral association with Aegisthus. Orestes killed his
mother but furies chased him. Nobody saw them; only he saw
them.
The persons around Agatha could not understand her words.
In this respect also Agatha's role as a foreteller, can be
130
compared to prophetess Cassandra in Orestiae.
Cassandra
revealed that, the Atredae was given over to Alaster, the
daemon, who drives inhabitants of the palace to madness and
propelled them to commit bloodshed. The dialogue in The Family
Reunion turned on the death of Harry's wife who died in a
storm.
I do not mince matters in front of the family
You can call it, nothing but a blessed relief
(CPP.p, 289)
Amy's sisters join her and call the death ^providential'.
Life is so cheap in Wishwood.
The death not only refers to
Harry's wife but also of Harry's father, the senior
Monchensey.
Dramatically these deaths also refer to the
murder of Agamemnon and Cassandra who were murdered by
Clytemnestra together with Aegisthus. After the murder of
Agamemnon, Clytemnestra made similar statements:
He, the old wrath, the driver of the man astray,
pressure of Atreus for the feast defiled; to assail
an old debt he hath paid this life, a warrior and
crowned king this day, atones for a torn child.'*
On human plane, Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter
Iphigenia to appease gods to grant favourable winds to voyage
for Troy.
This made Clytemnestra angry. During Trojan War,
Argos' army committed excesses on Troy, which deserved
retribution. There was also a curse on his house due to
killing of two children of Thrystes by Atreus. New blood is
shed to wash the stains of old blood, as vengeance. Thus
killing of innocent children of Thrystes' is avenged by
Agamemnon's murder. 'Alaster craves blood for blood' the blood
of vengeance to wash out that.^ According to Greek sentiment
mindless violence, hubrys
and dyke,
invokes pity in the mind of Artemis,
the divine retribution is let loose over the
* Whitney's Oates &. Eugene O'Neil, Jr. The Complete Greek Drama, 13,^^
ed. 2-yols. (New York: Random House. 1938) p, 194.
Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940)
P, 194.
131
perpetuator of this crime. With this background Ivy exclaims
the death of Harry's wife as providential;
to siibstantiate
this she makes one more statement- Harry's wife might have
committed suicide in a fit of temper' suggesting a curse on
Wishwood, like the one in Orestela. Amy shows an inhuman
callousness towards Harry's wife;
There can be no grief,
And no regret and no remorse.
(CPP. P, 290)
A similar action of Clytemnestra is seen in trapping her
husband in a bathtub with a net and murdering him.
Amy had
plans for the happiness of Harry, ^And I hope we can contrive
for his happiness'. (CPP. P, 290). To consider a person as
•*happy' is a bad omen according to Greek sentiment; his
fortune is likely to fall apart; and that person becomes
wretched, like Agamemnon or Oedipus. What waits for Harry is
the turning point of the play. Amy wishes all members of the
family to believe that nothing has happened in the household
during the last eight years. Thus the conflict of the play is
set.
Amy is bent on keeping Harry at Wishwood.
Amy's analysis of Harry's wife and her instruction to her
relatives shows that she is a strong lady as Clytemnestra in
Oresteia.
Past can not be ignored, by not talking about it. The
past in Oresteia direct the present and also future. Now
Agatha speaks as if in trans; as Cassandra did.
Cassandra's
words explain the preparations of Orestes and Electra to kill
their mother. It also serves as a mock at ignorant hviman
beings who think that by ignoring the past they can build a
happy future which is the Marxian attitude of life. Here lies
the root of Aeschylus' realisation that 'human events are
inte2rwoven with the divine^. •*Aeschylus interprets events in
hiiman life as interplay between the forces of destiny and
* Albin Lesky, Tragedy
Ltd.1965) p, 57.
(Trans) H.A. Franfort (London: Earnest Benn
132
personal will'.' Agatha's dialogue just before the first
chorus suggests that there is a design in every life, already
destined by the power beyond us. But people interfere with
their own plans in vain against the destined.
generate confusion.
This will
This reminds us of Clyt-emnestra's spending
libations to Agamemnon's tomb to appease the dead and to
counter the ill omen of a bad dream. This act of sending
libations only helped Orestes and Electra to recognise each
other and plot to kill her. Its modernisation is found in
Agatha's words:
Neglecting all admonitions.
From the world around the corner... (CPP. 290)
Every one associated with Wishwood knew how Amy illtreated her husband and it was the chief cause for his death
in abroad.
Clytemnestra became unfaithful to Agamemnon and
murdered him. The chorus, who represented, the Greek people,
admonished her. It did not like this graceless act of grace'
what would atone for the slaughter of the hero.
''With him awe
has been over thrown, and success reigns in its stead'
Yet stroke of
day; For some
twilight dim,
endless night
vengeance swift, smites some in clear
who tarry long their sorrows wait, in
on darkness borderland. And some an
Of nothingness holds fast^.
This clearly foretells the fate of Amy in doom: ^The
winds talk in the dry holly-tree, the inclination of moon'.
(CPP. 290)
^It gives an effect of invisible presence and the images which follow are suggestive of normal
experiences of the world is suddenly heightened... a
feeling of being haunted or visited'^
Does Agatha smell the arrival of furies that are already
present before Harry's arrival? In the chorus of the play,
•' Ibid, p, 74.
8
Richard G Moulton, Ancient Classical
Drama (Oxford: OUP, 1890) P,45
^ Neville Coghill, The Family Re-Union (London: Faber & Faber Ltd.
1969) p, 188.
133
Amy's relatives show their reluctance in participating in
celebration of her birth day; just as chorus in Choephorea
was
reluctant to play for the libation ceremony near Agamemnon's
tomb. Another link lies in Agatha's words:
The attraction of dark passage,
The paw under the door. (CPP. P, 244)
It reminds Agatha's own secret relationship with Harry's
father as well as Clytemnestra's relationship with Aegisthus.
The chorus concludes its reluctance to attend the party; Amy
feels that some one is passing the window. It was Harry who
has arrived, instead of John, as Amy expected. A series of
Surprising events begins from here onwards. Everybody was
surprised and happy to see Harry. But Harry stops suddenly at
the door and stares at the window and asks them if they like
to be stared at through window.
at Wishwood now.
Amy assures Harry that he is
There would be none but servants who all
want to see him. But Harry points towards window, where he has
seen some one peeping through. Gerald could see nothing.
But
Harry seems to be seeing them Harry clearly states:
You don't see them, but I see them.
And they see me. This is the first time that I have
seen them. (CPP. P, 292)
These are the exact words that Orestes in Aeschylus
Choephoroi, the second play of trilogy:
You don't see them, you don't-but I see
Them. They are haunting me down. I must move on"''°.
What Harry sees at the window in view of Orestes myth,
are the invisible furies that chased him. The furies followed
Orestes because he killed his mother to avenge his father's
murder. The eventual action of the play enacts the thematic
answers as it proceeds. First what puzzles Harry is, he felt
their presence at many places but why does he sees them, why
do these forces show themselves only at Wishwood.
10
Ibid, p, 17.
Though
134
pestered with these thoughts, he sets them aside and wishes
his mother on her birthday and speaks to all his aunts and
uncles. Amy asks Harry to rest till dinner:
^Your room is all ready for you, nothing has been
changed there' (CPP 292)
Harry feels irritated to hear quite often 'nothing has
changed' while time has transformed innocent Harry into a
tortured, miserable and haunted Harry.
The rest seemed to him
to have withered by age. This again reminds us the act of
Clytemnestra; after having murdered her husband foolishly sent
libations to Agamemnon's tomb as if nothing had happened.
Much has happened to Harry during those eight years after he
left Wishwood. This fact is not known to his family members.
Harry's word has poetic intonation of Eliot's popular siibject
as well:
^Time, Time and Time, and, change and no change'. (CPP. 293)
These denote time past, time present and time future.
It denotes a lot of change for Harry but no change for his
family members. While Orestes
myth connotes that the past
action (crimes) leads to present suffering and only can end in
freedom and bliss in future. In Eliot's poetry time past is
present in time present and points towards time future. Harry
thinks himself a different person-transformed from innocence.
It seems he does not want ^to think of him as a boy Harry' any
more, who could be controlled and dominated.
He asks his
family to stop to find a Harry of their own choice.
Only
Agatha seems to have understood the mind of Harry, she had
crossed that state of mind once in the past: guilt, sin, fear,
anxiety and peirplexity.
She plainly speaks to Harry that if
he does not like, let there be no pretence.
They will try to
understand him and he should try to understand them.
The agitated condition of Harry can be compared to the
mind of Orestes who returned to Argos and prayed before the
tomb of Agamemnon.
He is innocent but the house of Atreus
135
will involve him also in the curse, for he bears Apollo's
command to avenge his father's murder by murdering his mother.
He is also perplexed when his mother bared her breasts before
him to appeal for his filial love.
Orestes was ordained to
commit matricide and suffer madness there after. Agatha's
console is:
And you must try at once to make us understand.
And we must try to understand you. (CPP 293)
Lack of understanding between people is one of the
reasons for social unrest.
we speak plainly.
Understanding is achieved whenever
Listening patiently reduces the mental
stress of the speaker.
Harry is in the state of unrest. Death
of his wife is one of the reasons.
If he is able to
communicate his problem something can be done. More over
intention of the speaker must be effectively communicated.
Oresteia,
In
the chorus asks Electra, who was in irresolute state
of mind, ^to cast off all disguise and pray boldly for friend
and against foe'. Then she boldly prays for Orestes and
vengeance, thus becomes reunited with her brother.
Lack of
understanding between different sections of society, different
members of a family will breed unrest, stress, strife, doubt
and split.
That is why communication skill is one of the main
criteria to recruit business executives in the modem era.
Agatha knows the meaning of death.
It is not a mere
event but a means that transfoirras a person beyond all
proportions. Senior Monchensey's death means nothing to Amy,
but everything to Agatha; it has transformed her. Harry may be
under transformation after his wife's death.
Harry's
perplexity is inexplicable, just as that of Orestes, after he
kills his mother.
delusion.
Harry has similar phenomenon in his
There fore he explains thus:
You will understand less, after I have explained it.
All that I could hope to make you understand only
events; not what has happened. (After it) (C.P.P.
293)
136
Ironically, the aftermath of an event has played
devastating effects in Orestes' myth. Before starting a voyage
to Troy, Argos navy was stalled at port Aulis; the reason was
lack of favourable wind.
for remedy.
The prophet Calchas was consulted
He, in his fits of prophesy, sees:
Two eagles tearing a pregnant hare with an unborn
young in its womb... yea, the life unlived, and races
unborn they slew.^^
The prophet knew the two eagles were the two kings;
Agamemnon and Melenus, the hare was Troy.
And the unborn
young were all Troy's innocent children. It means victory
through sin and cruelty. Further Calchas prophesied a royal
virgin's sacrifice will bring favourable winds. Agamemnon
decided to sacrifice Iphigenia, his own daughter:
So this man hardened to his own child's slaying. As
help to avenge him for a woman's laughter and bring
his ships relief.^^
Thus Iphigenia's sacrifice made Clytemnestra angry and
she slew her husband-to avenge this murder, Orestes killed his
mother and was chased by furies.
So it becomes very much
essential to think of all the pros and cons before committing
a deed.
The event of death of Harry's wife sets furies behind
Harry; this is the impact of an event. This will not be
understood by spiritually dead persons, who do not \inderstand
an event setting the perpetual struggle of good and evil.
Harry sees no redemption from the nightmare of personal
spiritual guilt in a corrupted world in which he tells his
aunts and uncles that:
Life would be unendurable
If you were wide awake. (CPP. P, 284)
To be wide awake means to have spiritual awareness. It
is awoken person, who will be conscious of Original Sin
^^ Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus
1940) p, 187.
12
Ibid, p, 189.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press,
137
inherent in man-from Christian point of view.
In mythical way
that person would be haunted by furies.
Then he gives the perception of sin in a worldly manner.
-He pictures an old house (Wishwood) or Atridae with drains
that make it stink; ^no plumber can reach it, in which you
awake in the early hours, conscious of the haunting sadness in
the ancient bedroom'. Stink is the symbol of presence of sin
and furies pursuing the sinner; furies smell foul because they
are foul. In this way stinking confirms the presence of
furies.
I am the old house.
With the noxious smell and the sorrow before
morning. In
which all past is present. All
degradation is unredeemable. (CPP. P, 294)
Harry finds furies at Wishwood and makes a hypothesis
that there is some inherited sin in Wishwood which has passed
on to him. The sin committed by some one belonging to that
house in the past is still present, since, the old sin, in
Greek belief compels to commit more sin. So the degradation is
unredeemable.
This hypothesis is proved correct when Agatha
discloses in detail the account of Harry's father.
If we come
to Orestes' myth, Atreus killed his nephews and served their
flesh in a banquet to their own father. Thus Atredae was
handed over to Alaster who drove the inhabitants of the house
mad, and made them to commit blood shed: new blood to wash the
old blood. This goes on till the sin is expiated. Since Atreus
is dead, the curse falls on Agamemnon and then to Orestes.
The noxious smell untraceable is not physical but
metaphorical presence of sin and its outcome - hell and the
furies.
It is the guilt, and fear of sin and retribution.
The unspoken voice is the silent agony of victims of sin that
was heard by Cassandra in Agamemnon: the innocent children of
Thrystes whom Atrius killed. It was the shriek of his daughter
Iphigenia at Aulis. We are to anticipate, to learn, what sin
has surrounded the old house and Harry.
Harry also declares
138
that past incidents are responsible for the present maladies.
It indicates the process of reinstating the forgotten past in
the present.
Agatha encourages Harry to speak about the hidden truths
without bothering whether others understand him or not.
Tension of the mind is released by speaking about the
suppressed emotions. Then Harry reveals the cause of his
restlessness.
When Harry awakes to the spiritual awareness, he becomes
lonely, amidst the crowd that looks like even among the
crowds-which look like lost in a desert. The waste Land, of
his contemporary world.
So much of sin; the original sin,
inherent in man, is driving him out without any goal to reach;
so that they will return to the same acts of sin again and
again, so that the quantum of sin goes on increasing.
One thinks to escape by violence, but one is still
alone. It was only reversing the senseless
direction. (CPP. p, 294)
These lines again take us back to the curse on the house
of Atreus.
The curse forces the descendants of the house to
commit violence; they will be chased by furies, which again
will make them recourse to the same mindless violence-towards
mere sin and retribution.
Now and then there will be, some
rest, and then the cycle of sin will continue. This gives a
clue that he has committed an act of sin jostled by ghosts and
another such incidence will be repeated in the near future.
Now Harry returns from his delirium and confesses:
That cloudless night in the mid-Atlantic,
When I pushed her over. (CPP. P, 294)
Harry's confession is shocking and confusing. It is known
already that Harry's wife was washed away from the deck during
a stormy night.
night.
He tells a different story of cloudless
It further gives a clue.
139
I had always supposed. Where ever I went that she
would be with me; what ever I did that she was unkillable.
(CPP. P, 294)
The clue is that Harry thought often to get rid of her.
But he could not do so.
So she was un-killable.
When he
found that she was not at their cabin he enjoyed a moment of
joy and slept heavily as if nothing had happened-rather as if
relieved off a burden; hence happy to be lonely.
This is his
condition that he would live in-a solid wasteland.
The
happiness of Harry is momentary. Harry confesses before his
family that in a fit of frenzy he had pushed her to sea.
Both Amy and Charles are shocked.
Charles comes forward
to console Harry by telling him that Harry's wife was washed
away in ocean-as reported in News papers; and also that Harry
has nothing to do with his wife's death. His conscience can
be clear.
Charles has hit Harry where it pains much-the guilt
ridden conscience.
This conscience, like cancer, is
disturbing him away.
Harry, as if a philosopher, thinks that
the thought of killing is not an isolated incident.
It is the
outcome of an antecedent that caused' it. It is not only
conscience or mind that is deceased but the world in which he
has to live. It is indeed the modern world identified with The
Waste Land. Harry feels the death of the spirit, loveless
ness; sterility; the life means nothing to him:
I lay two days in contented drowsiness; then I
recovered. I am afraid to sleep. A condition in
which one can be caught or the last time and also
waking. (CPP. P, 295)
The state of heartlessness, lovelessness, fear, anxiety,
and a feeling of death when still waking represents the
condition of the modern men. Harry is not responsible for his
wife's death but has willed it; felt happiness and relieved,
slept deeply but suffers from moral conscience.
This is the
event; but the effects are deadly; the guilt haunts him, as if
140
his wife's ghost is very near to him.
Some supernatural
forces are chasing and driving him to near madness:
she is nearer than ever.
And they are always near. Here, nearer than ever.
They are very close here. I had not expected that
ever. (CPP. P, 295)
Mythical theme surfaces again.
We remember that after
Orestes killed his mother, some kinds of apparitions were
visible to no one but himself could see them. This drove him
mad.
He ran away from Atredae to Delphi to supplicate God
Apollo.
When he was on the altar of Apollo, furies
surrounding him were rocked to sleep by magic spell of Apollo.
Apollo sent Orestes to Athens to supplicate. Then the ghost
of Clytemnestra surfaced from Hades and exhorted the sleeping
furies to chase and torture Orestes again. Orestes saw furies
in Atredae-his own birth place, because the sin, the reason
for their arrival, began from there only. In the same way
Harry sees Eumenides in Wishwood, they are very near to him
because, his sin or a curse originated from there.
Amy advises, rather begs, Harry to take a hot bath before
dinner and rest. Neville Coghill interprets the bath: '*Some
see in this, the ritual cleansing derived from ancient Greek
drama'"'••^. Oedipus was asked to take a bath and offer ritual
libation before he was given shelter in the grooves of
Eumenides in Oedipus
at Colonus.
Agatha tells Harry that what
he has told so far is only a fragment of the explanation, but
there is more to understand. This is the way to freedom.
Agatha in this play also acts as a witch doctor that cures a
sick soul.
Amy gives a cryptic reason for Harry's condition that he
is not used to ^foggy climate' of Wishwood' betraying some
dark secrets.
day.
He would be well if he sees Wishwood again by
The day means light; enlightenment of Wishwood's
" Neville Coghill, the
1969) p, 194.
Family
Re-Union
(London: Faber & Faber Ltd.
141
secrets. Eliot's esoteric language unites at once different
layers of meaning.
Charles advises Amy to ask Dr. Warburton, the family
doctor, to dinner; he could give some advice to cure Harry.
It is accepted.
Charles also calls Downing, Harry's driver
and friend for interrogation. This is a sort of trial by aunts
and uncles over disappearance of Harry's wife. They could
gather from him some valuable information.
According to
Downing Harry and his wife were not compatible; she never
allowed him to be away from her sight. Harry was always
depressed.
Harry's wife drank cocktails she could not
withstand.
Many times she had threatened to commit suicide,
but she was not the type of doing so. He had seen her looking
down from high deck of the ship for a long time before going
to bed.
Harry is psychic.
Thus on secular plane
incompatibility and loveless ness is the cause for Harry's
troubles.
Downing makes an important statement, which Eliot
has been incorporated in his next play The Cocktail
Partyt
man and wife
Should not see too much of each other... (CPP. P, 300)
Too much familiarity breeds monotony, talking too much
breeds dissent; dissent breeds strife, strife causes hatred.
Eliot sets a code for couples in the play.
Meet every day as a stranger. Every moment is a new
beginning. Avoid expecting too much from life. Life
is just living together. (CPP. p, 300)
This scene is a vestigial form of the great trial of
Orestes by Aeropagus. Furies argue that torturing Orestes is
their right assigned by Zeus; Orestes committed the matricide
and he must be punished for it. Orestes argues that his
matricide was a divine ordain by Apollo; a social
responsibility, and a filial obligation to avenge his father's
murder. Moreover it was an interstate affair. Crime was
committed in Argos. Can Athens try the case? Athena appoints a
142
court, Aeropagus with jurors to hear the nature of Orestes'
crime. The circumstances under which the crime was committed
and quantum of punishment already suffered was to be taken
into account. Jurors were equally divided; then Athena as a
representative of Zeus' will cast her vote in favour of
Orestes and he was set free. Furies were given the status of
angels named Eumenides. Thus the old ways of vengeance came
to an end and a civilised hearing by courts over matters of
crime came into being. The old ways of vengeance gave way to
mercy and normal life there after. Greek society accepted
criminals after pilgrimage and suffering as if nothing had
happened; some like Oedipus and Orestes were even given the
status of heroes.
Downing is not a simple driver of Harry's car, but also a
trust worthy loyal friend- Pyledus who accompanied Orestes in
Ores tela.
He is spiritually more advanced. He too has seen
Eumenides, (furies) even before Harry does.
He rightly thinks
that they are pursuing Harry. He considers them as harmless,
and that they have come for Harry's good.
Eliot seeks in him:
A perfect modern man, fundamentally correct, with
right sense of humour, and also with unconscious
spiritual power, has a good blend of independence
and detachment.''"^
Second chorus reveals if something mysterious will happen
to them which they have been brought in together, even though
they are not willing to do so. Family compulsions are forcing
them. Their behaviour confuses themselves; they resist any
sudden change.
They anticipate that sudden change may fall on
them to recognise reality and illusion.
Each member of chorus
dislikes the other partially representing the lovelessness of
the modernity; because they do not understand one another.
Their ego prevents it. They resemble the reluctant chorus in
Ibid, p, 196
143
Ores tela,
asked to perform sepulchral gestures before the tomb
of Agamemnon as ordered by Clytemnestra.
In the scene after chorus Amy is disappointed at John and
Arthur not being arrived though their arrival was assumed to
be guaranteed.
Harry's arrival was doubtful, but he arrived;
she feels something is wrong while everything went wrong.
Agatha and Mary often make references to spring which is,
as in other works of Eliot, symbol of fertility and joy. Mary
complains spring is late and uncertain in northern England. It
is the symbolic of the dream she has secretly dreamt: marriage
with Harry.
In Ores tela,
Electra Cherished vengeance against
Clytemnestra, and waited for Orestes to arrive at Argos. In
The Family
Reunion
it is targeted against Amy:
I almost believed it- She had half killed her
(Harry's wife) by willing it. {CPP. P, 304)
Agatha is sorry that Harry did something which has made
him to be in the half insane and half sane state of mind. It
is a thought of killing; and its aftermath. It is not what she
(Harry's wife) did to Harry. '*0n him that doeth, it shall be
done'"""^. This guilt of Harry has many dimensions. It is a guilt
psychologically, which can be overcome by confession, a sin
religiously, which can be expiated by suffering, and also an
unexecuted crime legally, which has a punishment. This is only
a sin which is ought to be expiated by suffering.
Mary once again confesses that after Harry's arrival she
has the courage to go away from Wishwood, breaking from the
binding spell of Amy. Mary's condition is similar to that of
Electra in Oresteia.
She had no courage to defy her dominant
mother, could not forget what her mother did to her father.
Once she got the clues of the arrival of Orestes, she got the
courage to plot for Clytemnestra's murder. 'She prayed for the
beloved and vengeance for foes'. Mary seems to represent the
^^ Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus
p, 186.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940)
144
modernist generation whose thought and anticipation is
correct.
Her will to break away from Wishwood, and seeking
help from Agatha to get a job shows her confident, self
sustaining, and daunting courage to make moderate adjustment
to outward condition.
In response to Mary's request Agatha, like Cassandra the
prophetess from Troy, makes a cryptic statement coded like
puzzle which proves right later; Mary's decision is only due
to fear and pride.
It is the fear that Harry may not marry
her which would be disappointment; if he does she would be
entrapped in Amy's bondage.
It is the superficial pride, a
mere show of reluctance to marry Harry who had once rejected
her and married the other woman.
This is about Mary.
The
other important statement is regarding the future of Wishwood:
Waiting and waiting, always waiting.
I think this house means to keep us waiting.
(CPP.305)
The meaning of the word ^this house means' refers back to
Oresteia, the house of Atrius, and curse on the house; the
dweller will not be happy in it.
Its dwellers will be waiting
for new crimes, like an inherited property, ^the sins of the
fathers visit up on the sons'.
Harry takes the clue and enters, he asks Mary Vaiting
for what? How could poor Mary reply that she was waiting for
him only all these seven years?
She evades his question.
Harry wonders nothing is physically changed at the instance of
Amy which he does not like. The house that does not change
diabolically changes persons living in it. He expresses his
dislike;
It is very unnatural. This arresting of normal
change of things; It only makes the changing of
people. (CPP. P, 305)
Wishwood has been changing people.
It changed its
master into a victim of matriarch Amy; it has made Amy to
renounce her husband to become its mistress, it stirred Harry
145
to runaway from it. It also enabled Mary to nourish an
unfulfilled dream, and waste her spring. Many more changes
that Wishwood has iindergone will be revealed in the further
events.
It has its counterpart in Orestes' myth, the
notorious Atredae-the accursed house of Atreus has more
laurels than the house of Wishwood.
It is a ritual.
Brother
killed brother, father killed son and daughter, wife killed
husband, daughter plotted to kill mother, son killed mother;
and all these heinous' crimes are committed due to the family
curse. Wishwood is the counter part of Atridae. Mary comments
on the house:
Yes, nothing changes here, and we just go on... Drying
up, I suppose. (CPP. P, 306)
Mary tries to excuse herself, to change her dress for
dinner. It was a light remark.
A great change befalls on
Wishwood, because:
...Other memories. Earlier, forgotten, begin to return
out of my childhood. I can't explain. But I thought
I might escape from one life to another (CPP. P,
306)
Why does Harry return to Wishwood, quite against his
own decision?
Death of Harry's wife was a shock to Harry and
its aftermath invoked some sort of renouncing of all human
relation. Harry's mind was in what Upanishad's call, an inbetween state - an intermediate zone, in which a soul was
destined either to wake to full freedom and immortality or to
be reborn in some form. In that in between state one sees the
evils (of this world) and the joy (of the yonder world). It is
a state of extended and enhanced sensitivity.
But the soul caught in desire
Feels one life is not enough
And returns to this world in form.
What makes the soul to be caught in desire is:
146
... Other memories ... of happiness spent with Mary in
wishwood and he has thought he may find a new happy
life here/^
Thus Harry's return to Wishwood has many dimensions. On
the spiritual plane it is the other memories made the soul
caught in desire. On the psychological plane he has no other
place to go. The family cause is, to attend his mother's
birthday party and for a family Reunion.
On a logical plane,
death of Harry's wife and its aftermath is not an isolated
incident; but one of the series of incidents which has a root
in Wishwood. He returns to Wishwood in search of its root and
lastly on mythical plane he comes to kill his mother by
pushing her to desperation and to spoil her rehabilitation
plans.
His conversation with Mary focuses a light on his
childhood at Wishwood. There is a parallel of Orestes' return
to Argos with the same multiple dimensions. He could never
think of returning to Argos because he would be unwelcome
there.
What would have been his kingdom is being ruled by
Aegisthus.
Orestes' mother, who knows Cassandra's oracle
that, Orestes would avenge the murder of his father, would
welcome him with her axe. He would return to an accursed
house, which would offer only suffering to her dweller.
Knowing all these things Orestes was forced to return because
of two things: firstly to avenge father's murder, the greatest
value to be achieved and the very purpose of life; secondly
society would look down upon such sons. It will treat him as a
woman.
Moreover Apollo's oracle, bid him to kill his mother
otherwise:
Leprosy, madness, exile wasting death should overtake
him, if he hung back".
Carroll Smith, T.S.Eliot
Dramatic Theory and Practice:
from
Sweeney Agonestes
to the Elder Statesman
(Princeton: Princeton U P , 1963)
p37-38.
147
Apollo, the God of revelation, interpreter of the will
of Zeus, has warned him, that he must kill his mother or else
he will lie under dire penalties for the most sacred of duties
unperformed: Dyke, the divine retribution'''^.
Surprisingly Harry also does not have any other choices
left. While coming back he confesses before Mary that he may
escape from his present near insane life; ironically it is the
only life from which he can not escape.
In Oresteia, Orestes had two important duties to be
performed after coming to age; to offer a lock of hair to the
river by Argos; and to visit, pray, and offer a lock of hair
in due respect to his father at his tomb. Akin to these duties
Harry shares his moments of freedom during his childhood with
Mary thus:
It is absurd, that one's only memory of freedom
should be a hallow tree in a wood by the river. (CPP.
P, 307)
He also enquires Dr Warburton about his deceased father.
Agatha gives details about his father and her intimate
association with him. His main intention of conversation with
Mary is to know about their childhood memories and to question
whether she was happy during their childhood.
Mary answers
that their childhood was not happy because it was imposed upon
them.
They had no time to invent their own happiness. This
behaviour and attitude is now beyond tolerance.
Harry reveals
his own condition which is a civilization syndrome and evil of
modernity:
Sudden extinction of all alternatives, hopelessness,
and a feeling of being dumped among hopeless, to join
the legion of hopeless, unrecognised by other men.
(CPP. P, 307)
" Richard G Moulton, Ancient Classical
Drama (Oxford: OUP, 1890), p,
46.
'*Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus
P, 196
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940)
148
The severe intensity of this situation seems to be an
exaggeration. Harry married rather in a hurry, to spoil the
matrimonial design and walked away from Wishwood to escape
from Amy's domination. In this way he escaped from Wishwood
but falls to another web weaved by his wife.
She was equally
dominant over her husband, as Amy was. Hence there was no
ecstasy in marriage.
And there came a thought of getting rid
of his wife, but he could not do so. She dies in an accident.
He felt joy. He slept deeply for two days. Later furies begin
to haunt him.
He could not sleep thereafter. When he was
awake he felt fear, restlessness and self pity.
Then he
returned to Wishwood; furies followed him. He felt their
presence more intensely there. Where should he go from there?
Orestes' situation was identical. He was transported from
Argos to save his life from Clytemnestra. He neither could
live in exile since Apollo's oracle ordered him to kill-to
commit a grave sin (matricide). If he kills her, his subjects
will not allow him to rule or stay in Argos. Even if he
survived, furies will torture and consume him.
be tortured by furies in Hades as well.
He will even
What has to be done
on the part of Orestes? What alternative was left to him?
Harry was also in such a trap, where there is no hope. At
this situation the world of Harry and that of Orestes merge
into one. Mary's words of soothing touch are hopes for
hopeless.
Harry's hopelessness is a deception. Harry replies
pessimistically.
Imagining the horror is happiness (bright
colour) the glow of the world, that is pleasure of youth and
riches, is not there. Hence life is moving towards dusk.
The
twilight where the day meets the night, when he opens his eyes
he sees only horror that awaits him;
And the eye adjusts itself to twilight. Where the
dead stone is seemed to be batrachians, the aphilous
branch ophidian. (CPP. P, 308)
149
Harry feels that a dead stone seems to be a slimy cold
repellent frog. A bare branch looks like a snake hanging down
from a tree. It is an allusion to his confused state of mind:
illusion, propounded by Shankara Bhagavatpada in his Advaitha
philosophy (Brahma sathya; jaganmithya. (Only God is real, the
world is unreal). He gives an example, when a man is in
illusion a rope looks like a serpent. This expression is a
prelude to Harry's renunciation of worldly life.
Eliot deliberately brings an imagery of serpent, because
Clytemnestra had an evil dream, a day before Orestes' arrival.
In her dream, she gave birth to a serpent". She wound it in
swaddling cloth and offered her breasts to it. The serpent
sucked along with sweet milk her clots of blood also. To
avert this inauspicious dream she sent libations to
Agamemnon's tomb along with Electra where she met Orestes;
they identified each other and hatched a design to kill their
mother. Harry has lost all his hope in life, he believes, in a
delusion, that the twilight zone is near, and the furies will
torture him there for his sin.
This is comparable to furies.
No sooner Orestes killed Clytemnestra, the act of matricide
committed; the furies began to torture him. He cries loudly:
Like chariot-driver with his steeds, I am dragged out
of my course; at my heart stands terror ready to sing
or dance. """^
In bust of frenzy, he can see the furies in physical
form, dark robed, and all their stresses entwined with
serpents. ... Orestes rushes through distance to commence his
long career of wandering... that explains Harry's wandering:
...Java straits, Sunda Sea, Haley's Grand hotel...
Furies chase him. ''Furies are prayers of the injured
for justice on oppressors, the prayers of the forgotten dead
lives and works. That is dyke-the inevitable law of divine
19
P, 50.
Richard G Moulton, Ancient
Classical
Drama (Oxford: GUP, 1890)
150
retribution on the wicked'^" Mary kindles a flame of hope for
the hopelessness of Harry:
... But in this world another hope keeps springing. In
an unexpected place, while we are unconscious of it.
(CPP. P, 308)
Mary infuses optimism in Harry; he need not be all
together frustrated. In fact, Harry has returned to Wishwood
to seek a hope and his innocent childhood happiness:
The instinct to return to the point of departure and
start again as if nothing has happened. (CPP. P, 308)
Harry's reply to Mary's question confirms the inherent
desire to start afresh a matrimonial life, which once they had
missed.
It is again an allusion to Orestes myth.
After
matricide, insanity, wanderings, suffering, trial and
acquittal Orestes returned to Argos as a freeman, married his
cousin Hermeon and lived happily, as if nothing had happened.
Harry can not do so because for him the happiness is not in
Wishwood: 'it's like the hollow tree ... just not there'. (CPP.
P, 308) Mary perceives accurately that, Harry has a negative
attitude of fear, hatred, and loathing inside him.
to be changed.
This has
A strong will to face difficulties is needed.
That was exactly what Orestes had; will to execute what
necessity had commanded. Surrendering one's will to the will
of god is a positive attitude. Harry should covert his
negative attitude of loathing to a positive attitude of
loving.
Fear, anger, and hatred spoil a person from inside.
The words 'inside', and 'here' triggered tension in
Harry. He strongly felt the furies at Wishwood.
And in
'inside' they are making him to be panic of dreaming
dissolution. Presence of furies and its effect can not be
explained, because, they are in the world of sin, guilt, and
divine retribution.
It is their world; it is his world. Mary
has an instinctive knowledge of Harry's condition and can
^"Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus
p, 196,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940)
151
analyse it. He is attached to loathing, (like Amy) an
infatuation as others do to loving (like Agatha). Attachment
to loathing is misdirected.
Harry is deceiving himself by
becoming passive prey to circumstances.
He should try to come
out of it.
Harry's infatuation to loathing is psychological. He is
incapable of loving, and is not loved. Hatred breeds hatred.
Love of Clytemnestra for Aegisthus enabled her to murder
Agamemnon.
Paris' love for Helen led to Trojan War. Thus
maintaining a balance in between these infatuations is
necessary to lead a happy life. Mary's wisdom astonishes
Harry; her words appear to be from a person coming from a very
long distance, which is an allusion to ^the arrival of wise
men from the East' to pay their respects to infant Jesus in
Bethlehem. This is the myth of the Magi. Her voice as per his
explanation:
And I hear your voice as the silence
Between two storms... (CPP. P, 3 09)
It is wroth while to remember, that, the chorus of
elders of Argos describe Orestes' insanity and his running
away from Atredae as a third storm that has burst up on the
house of their king. In The Family
Reunion,
the death of
Harry's wife is first storm and Harry's renunciation of
worldly life is the other, which lead Harry to kill Amy.
Harry is attracted to a woman for the first time after
his wife's death.
His behaviour is rather calm, speech is
coherent, and not at all annoying; that is why he stops Mary
twice from dressing for dinner.
Her suggestion to alter his
self and an indirect reference to some people who have an
infatuation to loathing drop a hint to renew a normal life at
Wishwood. Now Mary's significance is dramatically enhanced.
Now she becomes Mary in The Waste Land who speaks soothingly
in summer, Isolde who had to cross ocean and meet his lover,
and also hyacinth girl waiting to meet his lover.
'*Is the
152
cold spring'... (CPP. P, 309) Harry's initial words seem to be
a positive response to a cryptic suggestion. Mary's words of
concern and understanding evoke hiiman love in Harry's cold
mind: a spring.
But Harry's doubt in that very spring
instinctively is revealed in the same ciryptic manner:
^Is the spring; is the spring not an evil time, which
excites us with lying voices'? (CPP. P, 309)
These lines betray Harry's love for renunciation to which
Mary's love is a distracting element. The soul in the between
state, which can be destined to salvation, is caught in the
memories of carnal desires, will again be degraded to take
birth in some form. Mary is such distraction. Does Hariry think
once is not enough? What if the dead is buried, will not the
spring showers turn them up? Do the gods ritually buried in
winter will really be reborn in spring?
Mary with flowers,
like a hyacinth girl, is waiting for her late spring time;
spring time invigorates the nature by sprouting the dead
winter and must be the symbol of spiritual regeneration.
But
here, as is in The Waste Land, is evil which excites Mary and
Harry, with lying voices for the moment. The spring that Harry
faced was evil, cold for Mary. Unsuccessful marriage makes
Harry to doubt another alliance.
Mary has to give explanation why spring could be an evil
time. It goes back to The Waste Land. Showers of the spring
surprise lilac tubers buried in dry land. When water is
supplied it taunts roots into life again. The memories of
sweet events and hidden desires are intensified.
Thus spring
evokes a thirst for a new life; but for the soul, once was
enough; it is tiresome deed to go through the cycle of birth
and death; so spring is an evil time. Will Harry bring
fertility to Wishwood which was rendered a waste land by
Harry's mother? When roots are activated there will be initial
pain; roots stir with pain, it is agony in the dark (beneath
the earth); dead veins of trunks begin to throb, buds will
153
bear pain and open up new leaves.
Even aconite, a poisonous
climber, and ^snowdrop' would like to enjoy their moments in
the wood. He has already a marriage. Mary's love will again
put him into another ordeal. So, the desire to embrace normal
life is an evil time with lying voices, which eluded ecstasy.
Harry reminds that spring is an issue of blood. The
winter is death of the old symbolised by blood in spring. In
Melanesian tribes, the old king must be killed, so that new
strong king may rule them. In Greek myth old king ridden with
sin are eliminated so that the new king may take over. Lauis,
Oedipus, Atreus and Agamemnon are eliminated thus. Among
Egyptians their idols of gods, Amon and Isis, were drowned in
Nile River during winter so that they may take their new birth
in spring. This is suggested by Harry thus.
Returning the ghosts of the dead.
Those whom the winter has drowned.
Do the dead want to return? (CPP. P, 310)
It is also an allusion to Clyteimiestra's return as a
ghost to exhort Eumenides to torture Orestes for matricide.
The spirit of Thrystes, as a divine retribution got Agamemnon.
It is worth while to remember that both Orestes and Electra
pray to the spirit of Agamemnon at his tomb, to return to
earth and help them. Hence the return of the dead is a matter
of concern and fear. Does the wife of Harry want to return?
Mary answers in a paradox;
Pain is the opposite of Joy.
But joy is a kind of pain. (CPP. p, 310)
Mary's statement is again cryptic and diabolic. In their
childhood joy was not simply there because everything was
prearranged for them by Amy; including the moment of joy.
Their puns, pranks, and antics made them guilty; displeasing
Amy.
They felt a sort of guilt which only could be quenched
by seeking punishment.
Thus acts of joy always ended in pain.
Harry wished to seek ecstasy by marrying an unknown girl who
did not give him any joy. In turn Mary had secretly loved
154
Harry; he disregarded her.
opposite: pain.
Here objects of joy returned their
This-statement has mythical explanation also.
Agamemnon sacrificed his own daughter, a royal virgin to win
the Trojan War.
The victory over Troy gave an immense joy but
ended in his own murder.
There was initial joy for Orestes,
for having fulfilled his filial task of revenge; he had to
suffer with insanity, fits and wandering. Choral ode in
Eumenides describes that jaws of time do not reduce the corpse
to senselessness.
And the dead can hear their children's
rites and will send answer.
The voice of appeal to save their
children preserves a man's memory when he dies.
Do the dead want to return? Will his hereditary guilt,
allows Harry to be happy in Wishwood, without expiation of the
curse on the house? This statement has spiritual and mythical
implications. Suffering to expiate the sins will lead to joy
and salvation in the other world. Indulging in sinful
pleasures of joy will lead to perpetual damnation in
purgatorial fire.
Orestes had to commit matricide, suffer
insanity and fits to expiate his sin and later enjoy the
pleasures of joy with Hermeon.
It is also a joy to fulfil his
filial obligation avenging his father's murder; though it is
painful to kill his mother.
There is a joy in killing his
mother's sinful paramour uncle Aegisthus and painful to kill
his mother.
Harry's experience is not only seen as parallel to the
process of nature but also seen as epitome of the experience
of the human race:
The season of birth is the season of sacrifice... What
of the terrified spirit. Compelled to be reborn.
(CPP. P, 310)
This is also suggested in the opening lines of The
Wasteland.
Harry begins to feel that Mary may become the other
side of the despair for him. The romantic mood that begins to
sprout in Harry is a poetic beauty of the play:
155
You bring me news (romantic gospel) of a door that
Opens at the end of corridor... sunlight and singing
only so as not to stay still. (CPP. P, 310)
It is a thought of marriage, happiness and children.
Eumenides make a bold appearance before him to show that
Wishwood is the cause of their arrival from which he has to
walkout.
The preservation of Eumenides in their Aeschylean
form serves as a reminder of this primitive terror.
The play is seen as portrait of permanent human
nature in its modern predicament.^^
Harry describes them as sweet and bitter smell indicating
they are both furies and divine angels, hounds of heaven, cin
euphuism for furies; kindly angels. Harry's earthly world
dissolves in their presence.
His other world, spiritual world
begins:
From another world... a vapour dissolving. All other
worlds, and me into it.... I am going. (CPP. P, 310)
Harry is the terrified spirit.
unavoidable.
It is painful but
He was much disappointed. '*Mary try to stop it...,
he pleads in vain. Harry hoped to stay at wishwood. 'That I
stood in sunlight, and thought I might stay there'. Precisely
at that moment curtains part. Eumenides show themselves to
Mary and Harry in full vision. Harry's guilt ridden mind makes
him to shout at them to say that he has no role in the death
of his wife. Only he had wished to get rid of her:
In Orestela, Orestes appeals to God, to attest his
innocence after killing her mother. ... Sees the
furies. ^^
Mary tries to console Harry, ignores that she has seen
them, and pretends that there is nobody, but Harry is
^^ David E Jones, The Play's
1965) p, 113.
^^Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus
p, 182.
of T.S.
Eliot
(London: Earnest Benn Ltd,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940)
156
determined.
He should face, follow and speak to furies. This
scene is peripatia; the action takes a new turn. Here, Harry
tries to disassociate himself from the past, which now seems
unreal. He must accept the past and its consequences in the
present in order to build a future.
In the beginning scene II, Mary enters with flowers in
her hands completing a symbol that she is the hyacinth girl in
The Waste Land, desperately in need of caring love of her
lover.
She has arranged flowers in the vase; symbolising a
design that may emerge with the arrival of Harry. Ivy
rearranges them as a symbolic confirmation of derailing the
earlier design of Mary. Amy enters with Dr Warburton whom she
had invited for dinner to study Harry's condition.
It seems
Eliot deviated from Oresteian pattern here Amy's counterpart,
Clytemnestra sends for her lover Aegisthus to share the false
news of Orestes' death. Dr. Warburton in this play is nothing
but a genuine family country surgeon called in to spy on
Harry.
Harry reveals his condition of a murderer.
Murder
causes a state of mind which is reversal of sleep and waking.
Amy stops the conversation with the cryptic statement
requesting Dr. Warburton to lead her to dinner.
The chorus again link before the audience of the things
that are going to happen, to things that had happened in the
past.
The past is almost at the door of Wishwood:
...the wings... The beak and claws have desecrated
history, shamed History. Shamed, the first cry in
the bedroom ... mutilated the family album. (CPP.
P.315-16)
They describe glibly two situations belonging to two
houses. Harry's father left Wishwood, Harry is about to leave.
Then they seem to describe Aeschylean Trojan War where Army of
Argos ransacked Sparta ^the beaks and claws have desecrated
History' reminds us of the cruel acts of Argive army.
Agamemnon had wrecked gods' houses, altars, blasted every seed
whence life might spring. Ironically Herald calls Agamemnon ^a ,
157
happy among man'. Desecration of God's temples, the violation
of human sanctities, and awakening the wounded dead, make
certain that there will be retribution, the dyke, on
Agamemnon. In First World War the civilised nations created
the same horror with Aircraft bombers, missiles, land mines,
enslaving counties, concentration camps, and torture chambers.
Chorus symbolically again describe the cause of the Trojan War
and its consequences. Paris, the prince of Troy, came to
Sparta as a guest and enjoyed the hospitality. But he rendered
the hospitality ludicrous by eloping with Helen, the gueen of
Sparta. Then Argives and Spartan army stormed Troy, ransacked
it and Committed unspeakable atrocity:
.... And the bird sits on the broken chimney. I am
afraid. (CPP. P, 315)
The last line is unfinished, the bird sitting on the
broken chimney is actually, in the ^Agamemnon'; tear opens a
pregnant hare and ate the unborn womb. Eliot indirectly has
described the First World War and its evils. Ivy as part of
chorus, calls it:
This is a most undignified terror and I must struggle
against it. (CPP. P, 316)
The Family
Reunion
was staged under the shadows of First
World War; mankind never saw such a disaster, devastation,
death and sorrow. How can one explain a giant phenomenon when
one never faced such a situation? Maude Baudkin asks:
For us too, horror grows of overshadowing disaster
Our world is diseased, constrained to selfdestroying violence... can we, if war comes, refuse
our part in it? ^^
Eliot has tried to use Eumenides
myth and imagery to
express contemporary situation and an individual's response to
War'. Eliot calls up on world community to condemn it. War is
^^ Maude Badkin, 'The Eumenides and present day consciousness
Adelphi' May, 1937, Vol. - XV, 411-13-RPT Michael Grant, (Ed.;.
T.S.Eliot:
Critical
Heritage,
2 vols. (London: Roulette & Kegan Paul. 1982)p, 384-87
158
a communal sin. Fellowship in suffering is an escape out of
it. It is shown in a cryptic dialogue:
The eye is on this house.
The eye covers it. (CPP. P, 316)
It is to be remembered that, as soon as Harry entered
into Wishwood, he reprimands the family for sitting in the
hall without drawing curtains: ^do you like to be stared at
through window?' (CPP. P, 291) According to Harry, eyes means
Furies. Agatha reinforces this meaning in her dialogue. House
in Wishwood is an allusion to the house of Atreus in Ores
tela.
At Atredae a deadly dinner had defiled it. Atreus, the father
of Agamemnon, had killed his brother Thrystes' two young
children and served their flesh as meat to their own father.
This ghastly sin invoked a curse on the house and was handed
over to a daemon Alaster.
There are three together
May the three be separated? (CPP. P, 316)
When Orestes entered the Atredae it consisted of three
occupants, himself, Electra and Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra was
murdered, Orestes ran away insane.
the house were separated.
Thus the three persons of
Three persons closely associated
with Wishwood are Harry, Amy and Mary. It is predicted that
they too will be separated. It points towards the curse on the
house to be revoked.
curse is ended.
The lethal hatred that was result of the
It was thus the vision of Cassandra:
A son who slays his mother, to avenge
His father; and the exiled wanderer. ... (CGD. P, 316)
In the scene I, Dr. Warburton wishes to talk something
in private with Harry. Harry bluntly avoids it and asks the
doctor to tell about Harry's father.
Here the unhappy
childhood of Harry at Wishwood and how Amy was responsible for
it was revealed.
Harry is also aware that he was kept apart
from his father. Nothing was heard of his father at Wishwood
either by Amy or whispering aunts. Ivy and violet. Agatha
never came to Wishwood then.
He asks the doctor where his
159
father was at that time. The doctor answers that Harry's
father and his mother were never happy together.
separated with mutual consent.
They were
Harry's father lived abroad.
Aeschylean similarity again begins to surface in the
play.
Agamemnon never truly loved Clytemnestra.
His passion
for great victory made him to sacrifice his elder daughter
Iphigenia to appease gods for favourable winds. He was away
from Atredae for ten long years during Trojan War. Moreover
he brought Cassandra back home as a war captive to set a rival
for Clytemnestra.
Meanwhile Clytemnestra also never truly
loved him; she loved Aegisthus, a sworn enemy of Atredae, as a
result both Electra and Orestes were not happy at home.
Harry's father left Amy to live abroad; so Harry hardly
remembered his father. None talked about him when children
were around. Harry remembered triumphant look of his aunts,
and their low voices on the day on which message of his
father's death was received at Wishwood.
He decided to ask
Agatha about his father, which Dr.warburton strictly advised
not to. At last Dr Warburton persuades Harry to hear what he
intended to tell. The doctor tells that Amy's heart is very
weak.
A sudden shock may send her to death:
She has only lived for your return to Wishwood to
take command at Wishwood. (CPP. P, 320)
Doctor Warburton sets before Harry his duties, to make
her happy while alive and the future of wishwood depends on
Harry. '*Your mothers' hopes are all centred on you' . (CPP. P,
320) Harry does not react to this fact, but as a clue, asks
the doctor about the appearance of his father; for which the
doctor replies that he very much looked like Harry.
Presence of furies at Wishwood shows that it is their
origin; and show that Wishwood is a haunted place, none should
be happy there; and also it is a place of sin and curse. If
Harry continues to live at Wishwood, he too will face the fate
of his father.
Even if he walks away from Wishwood the furies
160
will not allow inhabitants to live happily at Wishwood in
future. Harry's job would be to find more about the curse on
the house and expiate it. Then only life would be normal;
Orestes did the same. Two accidents that trouble Harry's
brothers, John and Arthur, confirm that there is a family
curse. Then Harry explains that incident and his own life is
only a part of the total design:
So long as I could think.
Even of my own life as an isolated ruin
A casual bit of waste in an orderly universe.
But it begins to see just part of some huge disaster
(CPP. P, 324)
This line can be explained in better way, alluding to
Oresteia.
Orestes' helplessness of being pushed to kill his
mother is not his personal problem but a hereditary sin. It
all began from Atreus, the father of Agamemnon and curse on
the house of Atreus. What sin was driving the life in Wishwood
to waste and frustration, it is to be traced yet.
Harry is living in and out of two mental planes, sane and
insane, in normal view; in the world of ghosts, guilt, in
human psychology; and religiously in spiritual and mundane
plane. His listeners do not understand his predicament:
To be living on several planes at once, though one
cannot speak with several voices at once. (CPP. P,
324)
Harry does not isolate his misery only to himself. It
seems to him it is a mistake and aberration of all, men of the
world: George A.G. traces this statement of Harry to the
Christian Concept of ^Original Sin'^^. Man was once in a state
of perfection, because of some prime-evil misfortune, George
calls it the Original Sin or fall, and he lost it. This arose
as a result of the freedom of choice. And on account of the
Original Sin, man was separated from god. This state of
separation is the token of man's sin. Without knowing exact
^* George, A.G, T.S.Eliot:
House, 1969) p.
His Mind and Art
(Bombay: Asia Publishing
161
cause for his suffering Harry thinks that the Original Sin
which is very much inherent in mankind is the cause of his
suffering. Agatha tells after listening to him that, there is
more to learn:
We must learn to penetrate the other private worlds
of make believe and fear. To rest our own suffering
is evasion of suffering, we must learn to suffer
more. (CPP, P, 326)
According to Greeks, sin must be expiated by suffering;
that includes pain incurred due to imagination, fear, mental
strain, and deprivity. The divine power which is called
partner is capable of leading man to destruction through guilt
and delusion:
The suffering ensures the road which leads man to
recognition of the divine decrees. '*This
understanding is gained through suffering'^^.
Ancient Greeks considered the Wisdom gained through
suffering as the meaning of life; acts shall endure, action
brings guilt; and guilt finds its retribution in suffering.
But suffering leads to understanding and wisdom. According to
Aeschylus this is the god-directed path through life.^^ The
feeling of sin has many dimensions. Psychologically it is
guilt; religiously it is sin and legally it is a crime. The
sense of sin is so intense in Harry that he finds it very
difficult to explain:
It is not being alone that is horror- to be alone
with the horror, purify my life, void my mind, but
always the filthiness. That a little deeper. CPP.327
Furies are visual form of Harry's guilt. He feels furies
are neither inside him nor outside; but they are in and out of
his consciousness. How can their presence be explained? Only
he has seen them, at least he thinks so; he has resorted to
verbal imagery like horror, as he remembered.
25
Albm Lesky, Tragedy
Ltd.1965) p, 32.
^^ Ibid, p, 75.
(Trans) H.A.Franfort (London: Earnest Benn
162
Furies are loathsome spirits ugly in appearance,
breath fire, smell foul, and from their eye drops
repelling loathsome spirits and all their tresses
entwined with serpents.^^
The art of showing furies as they are in the play is
lost.
Harry's feeling of filthiness again and again is a
verbal substitute for them. At the conclusion of Harry's
dialogue Ivy rushes in and asks someone should look for Arthur
in the evening paper. It is reported in it that Arthur too has
met an accident. Eumenides at Wishwood, and two accidents on
her sons, confirm a curse on the house in line with
Oresteia.
It is to be remembered that unless the sin is expiated as
Orestes did, the lineal curse on Wishwood will not be ended.
The chorus points out that there is something mysterious that
has passed from the past, and is how working in present and
will invariably points towards future.
There is no avoiding these things:
And we knew nothing of exorcism.
(CPP. P, 329)
Chorus thinks this is all the work of an evil force and
they are helpless to do anything about it. Again chorus
points out the present situation of Wishwood to Oresteia,
the
theme reiterates without an alteration like notes of music:
Whether Argos or England, There are certain
inflexible laws. ... There is nothing to do about
anything. (CPP.p, 329)
The chorus resigns from the miseries of Wishwood and
proceeds to listen to the news and weather report.
In the outset of the scene two, Harry conveys to Agatha
that he is going to renounce his rights, as master of Wishwood
in favour of his brother John, and hopes that John will be an
excellent landlord. Agatha insists what are his plans about
present. Harry makes a brief report of his failed married
life. Death of his wife, haunting by furies and at last his
return to Wishwood thinking everything will be alright there.
27
Richard G Moulton, Ancient Classical Drama (Oxford: GUP, 1890)p, 53
163
But furies showed their full spectre there. He does not know
their meaning. At wishwood he has to find a mystery long
forgotten and a new torture:
The shadow of something behind our meagre childhood
some origin of wretchedness is that what they would
show me? (CPP. P, 333)
He insists Agatha to tell about his father; she begins
her narration.... Harry's father was an exceptionally
cultivated country squire. Reading, sketching and playing on
the flute were his hobbies. He was diffident solitary man.
Lord Machesney and Amy Dowager never loved each other.
She
was dominating matriarch. She neither loved anybody nor was
loved by others.
She began to be possessive of Wishwood. And
she planned to have children to perpetuate her hold over
Wishwood. She used her husband for her end. Amy wanted a
sister always at wishwood. Agatha, who was then an under
graduate at Oxford visited Wishwood on a long vacation. She
fell in love with Harry's father. Amy was carrying Harry at
that time; he was due in three months. Thus Harry was born not
out of loving union but of a cold calculation. Harry's father
began to think how to get rid of Amy. Agatha already accepted
Harry as her own child. More over who was Harry then?
You to be killed! What were you then only a little
thing called life? Something should been mine, as I
felt then. (CPP. P, 333)
The central point of curse on Wishwood was here. Though
the act was not concluded, evil desire was there. Harry
recognises that he shares the sin of his father in a
particular way or they have had an exactly similar sinful wish
to get rid of their wives by murder. It is a sin by Christian
standards. Agatha was also a party for that sin. Because of
the love for Agatha, Harry's father thought so. Both committed
fornication. Harry's father also committed infidelity to Amy,
and defiled a virgin.
164
Theological point of view is that Harry's father is
guilty of three sins: adultery since he lusted with his wife's
sister, Agatha, intention of murder and fornication. There was
no love between him and his wife. According to Philip Horton:
Death of wife represents death of mother. In
Freudian situation, the desire for the death of wife
represents death of mother also.^^
^According to Christian doctrine, intention to evil deeds
is as evil as the deed itself .^' Greek mind is very sensitive
to the children and stillborn; killing them is an act of
violence beyond tolerance. It creates pity in the god Artemis
who invokes dyke, the law of Justice ^on to the doer, what he
doeth'. Sin may be hereditary. Greeks consider a family's
members as one unit. Greek religion believes that the sins of
fathers visit up on the children. Harry's predicaments are due
to inheriting of family sin. Amy knew the relationship between
Agatha and her husband. She still pretended to be ignorant of
it. '*She kept her husband as a ghost in his own house' (CPP.
P, 340) this lethal hatred is the cause for the curse on the
house of Monchensey.
Agatha was aware of her sins. She denunciated the normal
wedded life and remained a spinster, because she felt, in some
way, Harry was hers, and decided not to have any other child.
Thus, she atoned for her sins. Agatha is a brilliant
character. Some times she performs the role of Electra in
soothing the protagonist. Predicts as prophetess Cassandra,
the Trojan War captive, assigned to Agamemnon by lot, and who
was doomed with Agamemnon.
Harry's father fell in love with
her, and destroyed her as Agamemnon did by sacrificing his own
daughter, the royal virgin, Iphigenia. Agatha, like Electra in
Oresteia
helps to kill Clytemnestra, helps Harry to gain
28
Philip Horton, ^speculations on sm', Kenyan Review, summer, 1939,
vol-3 RPT Michael Grant, (Ed.;. T.S.Eliot:
Critical
Heritage,
2 vols.
(Londo^^: Roulette & Kegan Paul. 1982)p, 388.
David E Jones, The Play's of T.S. Eliot (London: Earnest Benn Ltd,
1965) p, 35.
165
sanity.
His illusion, like mist before sun, disappears and
begins to asses the facts in the light of reality. He begins
to see his life as a repetition of his father's life.
Thus Agatha cures his illusion. Harry suffered all these
years because of the sin of Wishwood.
It is also destined
that the knowledge of sin should precede the expiation. Now it
must be expurgated by more suffering.
Harry must be prepared
for it:
... It is possible you are the consciousness of your
unhappy family, its bird sent flying through the
purgatorial flame.... (CPP. P, 333)
At last Harry is happy; he has no words that can explain
it. Agatha atoned for her sins by forcing herself to be a
spinster, burying her life below the placid appearance of a
principal of ladies College; she divested herself from the
normal worldly life. Harry suffered insanity after his wife's
death. The ghosts of guilt, nightmares, delusions, haunted and
tortured him.
In and out, in an endless drift
Of shrieking forms in a circular desert
...Until the chain broke. (CPP. 334)
Breaking the chain is to be free from the normal desires
of the worldly life and an inclination towards renunciation,
but there are certain duties to be performed. Harry now feels
relieved and happy:
I feel quite happy ... it is happiness
Did not consist in getting what one wanted. (Mary)
Or in getting rid of what cannot be got rid off (wife)
but in a different vision. This is like an end. (CPP,
334)
Both confess their mind and share their suffering. Agatha
suffered her dispossession by directing her love to Harry.
Harry denunciated his lovelessness; sterility can be cured by
love only Harry lyrically expresses:
0 my dear and you walked through the little door
And I ran to meet you in the rose-garden. (CPP. 335)
166
Both find relief from what happened. Agatha reminds Harry
of his long journey after the knowledge, ^You have got a long
journey'. (CPP. P, 336) because relief from past is just
beginning. Harry is free from the ring of ghosts with joined
hands and the place is quiet.
Eumenides again appear and show
their foarm. Harry now is neither surprised nor afraid; He is
-ready to pursue them.
Eumenides are ready to leave Wishwood,
so also Harry.
... I know there can be only one itenery
And one destination let us lose no time. I will
follow. (CPP. P, 336)
Eumenides disappear; Agatha steps into their place and
asks Harry to follow the furies to fulfil the curse.
So that
all the wrongs of the past might be righted off and curse be
lifted. Amy enters and is shocked that Agatha asks Harry to go
away from Wishwood; she is annoyed because Harry does not
explain why and where he is going. Harry replies casually:
To the worship in the desert, the thirst and
deprivation, a care over lives of humble people,
lesson of ignorance, of incurable diseases. (CPP. P,
339)
Agatha and Harry both know that the heart of Amy is veiry
feeble and cannot withstand the shock of Harry leaving
Wishwood. But he has to go to relieve Wishwood off an ancient
curse; to be precise: ... Love compels cruelty. (CPP. P, 339)
Harry's is not going on a pilgrimage as was in the case of
Orestes. After his trial and acquittal he returns to Argos,
marries Hermeon, the daughter of Helen and lives happily.
Enjoying the pleasures of youth is the epicurean value of the
Greeks. In Oresteia
the furies convert themselves into kindly
angels; but Orestes does not change at all. But in The
Reunion
Family
it is Harry that changes. Both the plays avoid
"wasting away of human kind\ expiating the sin, rather than
allowing the "dyke', the divine retribution to work. The will
to expiate comes from the knowledge gained through suffering.
167
The knowledge is to surrender the will to the will of God.
Orestes surrenders him to the will of Zeus.
Harry pursued the
divine angels. Harry's conversion is expressed in his
determination. \..I must follow the bright angels' . That is
the collective wisdom of the mankind. Eliot has preciously
called them 'Eumenides'; here and there, they have been called
ghosts, but Harry mentioned them as ^bright Angels'. The
change of the agreeable and respectable names to these
^heavenly hounds' is the change in the perception of Harry
towards them. In Oresteia
the blood thirsty ^Erenyes' were
persuaded by Goddess Athena to make Athens their home, to
receive libations from Athenians and in turn they protect
Athens from draught and pestilence.
Then they stop their
execution of ^dyke" and become kindly angels. There is
anthropomorphic evolution in this process in which ghosts
giving up blood thirsty retributions.
P.O. Mathieson
interprets these furies as divine instruments'^"
In the beginning of scene III Amy thinks herself a fool
to have asked Agatha back to Wishwood. She accuses Agatha that
thirty five years ago she took her husband from Amy; now she
is taking Harry away from her. Mary enters at this juncture.
She knows Harry is going away. She asks Agatha to stop him for
there is danger for him (from furies).
Agatha refuses to stop
him and justifies his departure because Wishwood is a
dangerous place:
Here the danger, here the death, not any where; else
where no doubt is agony, renunciation, but birth and
life. (CPP. P, 342)
From this point onwards Eliot leaves Oresteia
behind and
progresses with his own world, the spiritual world of
collective human wisdom.
Every religion believes there is a
world beyond this world that all go after death.
In between
these two worlds Eliot believes there is a neutral territory^^Carroll Smith, T.S.Eliot
Dramatic Theory and Practice:
from Sweeney
Agonestes
to the Elder Statesman (Princeton: Princeton U P, 1963)p, 128.
168
the neither world. The world in which Harry lived was that
neutral territory.
He moved in and out of this territory
because he was tempted by Wishwood and Mary. Agatha gives true
picture of his past, his illusion disappeared and his mind
crossed the neutral territory. Agatha expresses thus:
Harry has crossed the frontier
Beyond which safety and danger have a different
meaning. (CPP. P, 342)
Agatha does not want him back into their world. Furies
are guiding him.
He must follow them.
crossed no one returns.
Once this frontier was
It is his privilege. It is foolish to
ask him back. She explicitly reveals it. She can not tempt
Harry back to the physical world over the border.
Eumenides in Ores tela
never led Orestes to heaven.
They
settled down at Colonus, an Attica outside Athens. Orestes
went back to Argos to live with Hermeon. These furies that
lead Harry across the frontier are the 'hounds of heaven'; the
Christian guardian angels who nudge their charge back to the
right path whenever he strayed from the right path. This shows
spiritual superiority of Harry over Agatha and Mary.
We all must go each in our own direction you and me
My dear, may very likely meet again.
In our wanderings in the neutral territory.
Between two worlds. (CPP. P, 343)
The concept and meaning of neutral territory, nether
world is better understood if the doctrine of karma as
mentioned in Bhagavad-Gita
briefly explained.
and Pathanjala
Yoga Sutras
are
A human being is destined to perform
deeds: karma. One cannot live without doing work.
As Mead
calls it:
Good actions have good results, and bad ones bad.
This is the law of karma, the doctrine of action and
reaction.
One accumulates the result of both good actions and bad
actions in his entire life time of embodied soul. The
169
Upanishads
believe that there will be series of birth and
deaths until salvation. The results of actions determine the
conditions of the soul at rebirth.The Shwethashwatha
Upanishad
(5-11-12) describe this process:
According to his deeds (karma) the embodied one
successfully (after death) assumes forms in various
conditions, coarse and fine, many in number. The
embodied one chooses, forms according to his
qualities of acts and himself.^''"
Deliverance from this chain of birth and death is
salvation which is possible only by true insight into nature
of Brahma. When the soul leaves the physical body after death,
it enters into certain 'between state', where it learns the
law of good and evil that governs its time on earth.
In this
zone he sees the evils of this world and the joy of yonder
world. In this in-between state, which is also an intermediate
zone, the soul is destined either to wake up to full freedom
and immortality or to be reborn in some form. G.R.S Mead calls
this state as:
In this state every past deed of the world or even
thought can be represented in vivid consciousness 32
Harry has a t l e a s t temporarily crossed i n t o t h i s extended
and enhanced s e n s i t i v i t y s t a t e s t h a t a r e n e i t h e r of t h i s
life
nor of the other, but are as i f i n epigraph of the Gerontion:
As i t were on a f t e r dinner sleep dreaming of both
t h a t (worlds) and t h i s a l s o .
This explains Harry's remarks i n the scene:
The sorrow before morning i n which a l l p a s t i s
p r e s e n t , a l l degradation i s unredeemable. (CPP P344)
There i s unease and suspense, as i f the fates of the soul
hangs in the balance, in t h a t t w i l i g h t zone, where many values
^^ The Shwethashwatha Upanishad (5-11-12), Rpt, Cleo Mac N e l l y Kearns,
T, S. Eliot and Indie Studies:
A Study in Poetry and Belief
(Cambridge:
P r e s s Syndicate of t h e UP, 1987) pp, 38-39.
^^ Cleo Mac N e l l y Kearns, T, S. Eliot and Indie Studies:
A Study
in Poetry and Belief
(Cambridge: P r e s s Syndicate of t h e UP, 1987) pp, 3839.
170
of life and death, action and passion, hope and despair have
been reversed.
Harry has been lead across the frontier; he
must follow furies. When the soul is in the nether world, the
memory of desires, tempt them to take birth in this world
again.
Harry's soul was caught in desire. That is why he
returned to Wishwood. The reason for ''hounds of heaven' at
Wishwood was to prevent him from doing so. Agatha confesses
before Mary that:
My dear, we may very likely meet again in our
wanderings in the neutral territory between two
worlds. (CPP, p, 344.)
This is because of the desire for Harry's father in
Agatha, and desire for Harry in Mary is not yet quenched; such
souls who could not make-up their mind; they wander in neutral
territory.
A curse is the out come of evil deeds (Kukarma) which
results in pain, suffering.
According to Lord Buddha:
Life is full of suffering (dukka).
Path of salvation is withdrawal from sensual life.
Eliot is obsessed with the idea of ^contemptus mundi';
the need to withdraw from sensual life. This withdrawal
involves prolonged austerities to accomplish, and it is
actually to attain an inner state and may conjoin even with an
appearance of a worldly life, 'It is possible to be thus
withdrawn even in the midst of experience' .^^ Agatha in The
Family
Reunion,
Reilly in The Cocktail
Party
has attained
this. Harry decides to go on his path.
To the worship in the desert, the thirst and
deprivation ... incurable diseases. (CPP. P, 339)
Only salvation can bring freedom from the chain of birth
and death in Samsara. The path of salvation, the Mandooka
Upanishad
goes on: '*Only those who practise austerity and
faith in forest, who live on alms and be without passion, the
^' Cleo Mac Nelly Kearns, T, S.
Poetry
and Belief
Eliot
and Indie
Studies:
A Study
(Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the UP, 1987) p, 42.
in
171
peaceful knower, go through the door of the sun', to find
genuine immortality'.
Salvation means escape through insight into an
eternal timeless reality.
Harry is on path of salvation. The Vedanta system
differentiates two paths to salvation:
an exoteric path and
an esoteric path. Exoteric path is concerned with devotion and
observation of rites aimed at improvement of moral life and it
offers through transfiguration, a temporary heaven.•^^
The esoteric path is advanced, or an introspective
philosophy, critical, analytical and is concerned with
apprehension of truth through ascetic renunciation. It is
aimed at the recognition of the identity of atman as Brahman
and thus to complete liberation from the cycle of birth and
death.^^ Paul Duson elaborates that the devotee knows and
worship Brahman in the exoteric theological form.
They cling
to the doctrine of Brahman and yet unable to see through this
unreality of the phenomenal world and know Brahman as Godhead.
The devotee, however, must be guided through after death, by a
man spirit, who is not as a human being, to the realm of
Brahma. Mary and Agatha do this job on the physical plane; and
^Angels of heaven or furies do this on the spiritual plane.
The concept of guardian angel must begin from the concept
of Original Sin.
It is innate in mankind, as an inheritance
from Adam who disobeyed God's command and was thus expelled
from heaven whose generation is carrying with it. Christianity
believes that this physical world is not a permanent one.
There is the other world, the world after death, the abode of
God. That world is permanent which is full of bliss. Only the
blessed persons gain it. According to St. John of the cross:
^*Cleo Mac Nelly Kearns, T. S.
Poetry
Eliot
and Indie
Studies:
A Study
and Belief
(Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the UP, 1987) p, 45
" Ibid, p, 45
in
172
Hence the soul cannot possess of the divine union,
until it has divested itself, of the love, of the
created beings. (The assent of the Mount Carmel)
So Harry divested his mind from the love of created
beings (Agatha, Mary) and material wealth, accepted
renunciation and followed divine furies to where they lead
him. The Christian pattern of atonement for the sin is
forsaking of family and all earthly attachment as Jesus
explained:
...He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter
more than me is not worth of me; and he that taken
not his cross and followth after me is not worth of
Tv,^
36
me.
Knowing about the past secret of Wishwood is more than
the moment of illumination to Harry.
It is the worldly
counterpart of the mystical illumination, which is sought
through abnegation of ordinary life -. Under this
circumstance, ^Eumenides are no longer remaining as primitive
deities, but they represent the prompting of conscience and
are the instruments of divine grace'•^'.
Illumination is a less direct apprehension of the
ultimate reality than mystical identification with the
beautitude.
It is in fact experience of Dante, for whom the
process of salvation began from the moment in which he saw ^
Beatrice^^, while that of Harry begins with the sight of Mary.
There is a permanent inclination towards evil in all human
beings. The evil originated by the voluntary rebellion of the
created beings in opposition of God even before the appearance
of man on this planet God for his unknowable purpose created
spiritual beings, endowed with them free will. Then a free
will is free to rebel. At some point of time in the evolution
of man, man also aligned himself with rebellious powers and so
^^ David E Jones, The Play's
1965) pp, 102-03.
" Ibid, p, 92.
^* Ibid, pp. 100-01.
of T.S.
Eliot
(London: Earnest Benn Ltd,
173
partly diverged from an upwardly spiritual evolution which god
had designed for him. This divergence inclines him towards
evil; when Harry speaks of slow stain, he is referring to the
taint or twist of all evil in us. All that is loosely called
'original sin' (Coghill P 44-46.)
Harry's sudden illumination or spiritual elevation is not
possible for every one. Such type of experience is meant for
only few who are called sick souls or twice born. William
James Gifford, a lecturer at Edinburgh, distinguishes two
prominent religious minded men.
Healthy minded are called the
once born and those he called the twice born are sick souls.
(Coghill P52) ^Sick souls, or twice born, are deeply conscious
of their own sinfulness and of the sinfulness of the world
about them.
They tend to prefer punishment to forgiveness,
the day of the judgement, to the beautiful vision. Asceticism
to pleasure. Protestantism to Catholicism, and Puritanism to
either .^^
... But the sick soul, whose communion with God and
peace of mind has been won through the paroxysm or
instantaneous conversion. ... No effort or volition
of his own.*°
Certainly Harry is a sick soul, he passes through
paroxysm of instantaneous conversion; he has
mysterious
nerves inherited from his father, he sees himself and the
world around him is saturated with moral evil and he departs
at the end of the play to seek asceticism, and suffering where
the broken stones fang up.
Harry goes away from Wishwood suddenly causing a shock to
every body. Amy saw futility in living further when her plan
will not be realised and she loses interest in wishwood and in
living itself:
... So you will all leave me,
An old woman alone in a damned house. (CPP. P, 343)
^' Dr NP Williams in The Ideas
Neville Coghill, The Family Re-Union
^° Ibid, p, 54
of
the
fall
and Original
Sin
Rpt
(London: Faber & Faber Ltd. 1969)p,52.
174
The fate, wandering life, futility and surrendering the
will to the will of God to avoid the waste of lives and to
seek the release from futility is the striking conversion and
the main theme of both the plays.
The cycle of vengeance and retribution killed every male
member of the house of Atreus; Orestes was the last surviving
member. He also, as ordered by Apollo, committed matricide.
If this act of vengeance continued unendingly, it will render
human life a waste. To put an end to this mindless violence,
Orestes surrenders him completely to the command of Zeus and
becomes a supplicant to Apollo.
This symbolic urge to end
mindless violence is the anthropomorphic development among
Greeks. Aeschylus has an answer. That is the Zeus, who
delivers men from the burden of futility, from the never
ending chain of vengeances revenged. Zeus instituted the law
of suppliant:
The man who throws away all defence and put himself
at your mercy must be respected; betraying the
suppliant is in the eyes Zeus, the worst of sins,
unforgivable even in the grave.^""^
Orestes surrendered himself to Zeus. Apollo enchants the
r
furies to slumber and hands over Orestes to Athena. 'The
conception of a God who is above the law and can therefore
forgive is the great contribution made to the religion of
Europe by Greek anthropomorphism'^^
In both the plays pilgrimage expiates the curse
completing the charm:
So that knot is unknotted, the crossed is uncrossed.
The crooked be made strait and the curse be ended.
*' Gilbert Murray, Aeschylus
pp, 200-02.
*2 Ibid, p, 202.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940)