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Global International Research Thoughts
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October-December 2013
A Psychological Study of
The Family Reunion
*
Shamsher Singh Togariya,
Assistant Professor,
Department of English,
A.I.J.H.M. College,
Rohtak (Haryana).
ABSTRACT
The Family Reunion is a play written by T.S.Eliot in 1939 and was first performed on the stage on 21st March 1939 at the Westminster Theatre, London. It deals with the psychology of various characters which creates confusion and conflict at various levels.. Keywords : Harry, Poet, Murder.
The drama of T.S. Eliot ‘The Family Reunion (1939)’ also shows that all most all
characters in the drama are suffering from some psychological defect. The play is written in two
parts and each part has three scenes. The opening scene can be considered as the prologue and
the ending scene as the epilogue. The drama is written in free-vase. According to Eliot, “The
mass and the music hall might be exploited to help and revive verse drama.”1
The whole story of the play revolves around Harry, who is a son of Lady Monchensy, the
owner of an Estate. Her name is Amy. She has two more sons John and Arthur. Her three sisters
Ivy, Agatha and Violet are also living with her. Her two brothers-in-law Charles Piper and
Gerald Piper are also the members of this joint family. Dr. Warburton, Downing, Mary and
Denman are other characters of the play. The Eumenides (the furies of Hell) are also an essential
part of the play.
The play opens with Amy, Ivy, Violet, Agatha, Gerald and Charles who assemble in the
drawing room of the house situated at Wishwood in the North of England. Amy's birthday is to
be celebrated. Her son Harry comes back home after spending eight years abroad. When he
enters the room, he is surprised to see some supernatural figures in the window of the room. But
these figures are visible to Harry only. Other persons in the room cannot see them. These are the
Eumenides who have been following him since the death of his wife. The Eumenides make
Harry realize that he is responsible for the death of his wife. And such incidents conceive the
guilt complex in the mind and heart of Harry. This is the main reason of Harry's conflict. Due to
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Global International Research Thoughts
ISSN 2347–8861
October-December 2013
such incidents he remains in confusion and tension all the time. His defective psychology can be
seen in the following speech:
Harry: No, no, not there, Look there!
Can't you see them? You don't see them, but I see them,
And they see me. This is the first time that I have seen them. In the Java Straits, in
the Sunda Sea.
In the sweet sickly tropical night, I knew they were coming.
In Italy, from behind the nightingale thicket
The eyes stared at me...
Behind the palm trees in the Grand Hotel
They were always there. But I did not “see them
Why should they wait until I came back to Wishwood? There were a thousand
places where I might have met them!
Why here? Why here?
The above two lines create great confusion in the mind of Harry. Why do they follow him
to Wishwood? This 'why' is the root of his conflict and confusion which creates tension in his
mind.
He enters his sleeping room and is astonished to see that all the things in the room are in
the same position and place as they were before eight years. He speaks:
Time and time and time, and change, no change!
You all of you try to talk as if nothing had happened...
In my absence (Act I, Sc. i, p.293).
But to Harry there has happened something great. He is in confusion because he cannot
express his inner conflict. He says “how can I explain, how can I explain to you?/You will
understand less after I have explained it” (Act I, Sc. i, p.293). Harry thinks that all the members
of the family are common people and they cannot understand what has happened to him.
After hearing Harry's irrelevant and uncommon words, all the family members become
confused and astonished. Some one thinks that they should call in the doctor who can diagnose
his psyche because he is ill but psychologically. Some one thinks that they should call in the
chauffer who had been with him during the eight years abroad. All his uncles and aunts are in
confusion. See the dialogues:
Gerald:
God preserve us!
I never thought it would be as bad as this.
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Global International Research Thoughts
Violet:
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October-December 2013
There is only one thing to be done:
Harry must see a doctor.
Ivy:
I have heard such cases before that people in his condition
... They do not want to be cured
Charles:
He has probably let this nothing grow in his mind,
Living among strangers, with no one to talk to.
.
(Act I, Sc. i, p. 296)
But there is only one member of the family who knows some-thing, which is hidden to
others. And that is Agatha, his cousin. She tells Harry:
Agatha:
There are certain points, I do not understand.
They will be clear later. I am also convinced.
That you only hold a fragment of the explanation.
It is only because of what you do not understand.
That you feel the need to declare what you do.
There is more to understand: hold fast to that
As the way to freedom.
(Act I, Sc. i, p. 296).
His uncles and aunts are confused and they ask Harry to speak in his own language. But his
tension is that he has no languages of his own. He tells, “This is what matters, but it is
unspeakable/untranslatable: I talk in general terms/Because the particular has no language” (Act
I, Sc. i, p. 294). Due to this conflict and confusion he feels himself “In an overcrowded desert,
jostled by ghosts” (Act I, Sc. i, p. 294). This confusion and conflict of his is “just the cancer/That
eats away the self' (Act I, Sc. i, p. 295). He cannot sleep during the night and cannot walk during
the day: He is always afraid of the Eumenides, who put him on the edge of confusion and
conflict. His mind is obsessed with the appearances of the Eumenides. “And they are always
near. Here nearer than ever/They are very close here. I had not expected that” (Act I, Sc. i; p.
295).
Without understanding the reality, the family members call in Dr. Warburton. And Harry
feels himself living among strangers, with no one to talk to.
The scene changes and Mary enters, who is supposed to be Harry's would be wife. She
wants to be with him but becomes confused after listening to him:
Harry: If I tried to explain, you could never understand
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Global International Research Thoughts
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October-December 2013
Explaining would only make a worse misunderstanding:
Explaining could only set me farther away from you.
There is only one way for you to understand
And that is by seeing. They are much too clever
To admit you into our world. Yours no better
They have seen to that: it is part of the torment.
(Act I, Sc. ii, p. 309)
Marry is in confusion that what is to be seen and what is to be understand. She is astonished that
she cannot see what Harry sees. They are “the Eumenides in the window embrasure” (Act I, Sc.
ii, p. 311).
Dr. Warburton comes and diagnoses Harry. His words keep all the family members in
tension and confusion:
Warburton:
Weare all of us ill in one way or another
We call it health when we find no symptom
Of illness. Health is a relative term…
Harry: Murder a reversal of sleep and waking
Murder was there. Your ordinary murderer
Regards himself as an innocent victim.
To himself he is still what he used to be
Or what he would be ....
(Act I, Sc. iii, p. 315)
The words like illness, health, murder, sleep, waking and victim keep everybody in confusion
and tension. There may be some questions in everyone's mind like, if someone is healthy, then
how can he be ill? Who is the murderer here and who is murdered? Who is the victim here? The
chorus introduced in this scene and the words spoken by it are also full of confusion. “I am afraid
of all that has happened and of all that is to cornel ... And the past about to happen and the future
was long since settled” (Act I, Sc. iii, p. 315).
The speech by Agatha is the most confusing and full of tension. These lines are the
central point of the drama and the seed of the conflict and confusion of Harry and all others.
These lines give some clue that Agatha is the only person who knows the reason of the conflict
of Harry, She thinks:
There are three together
May the three be separated
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May the knot that was tied
Become unknotted
× ××
× ××
× ××
× ××
× ××
× ××
The eye of the day time
And the eye of the night time
Be diverted from this house
Till the knot is unknotted
The crossed is uncrossed ...
(Act I, Sc. iii, p. 316)
These questions are revealed in the next part of the play. During the conversation with Dr.
Warburton, Harry speaks the reasons of his mental conflict and confusion. He asks Dr.
Warburton:
I want to know more about my father
I hardly remember him...
Where was my father? (Act II, Sc. i , p. 319).
And the doctor tells him:
You know that your mother
And your father were never very happy together
They separated by mutual consent
And he went to live abroad. You were only a boy
When he died (Act II, Sc. i, p. 319).
But Harry is not satisfied with Dr. Warburton's answer and he decides to ask his aunt Agatha.
She asks “What is in your mind, Harry? / I can guess about the past and what you mean about the
future/But a present is missing ...” (Act I, Sc. ii, p. 330). And Agatha tells him:
Agatha:
Your father might have live or so I see him.
An exceptionally cultivated country squire
Reading, sketching, playing on the flute,
× ××
× ××
× ××
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But not neglecting public duties.
× ××
× ××
× ××
Where he was weak to recognised your mother's power
And yielded to it.
× ××
× ××
× ××
... A man and a woman
Married, alone in a lonely country house together
For three years childless, learning the meaning
Of loneliness. Your mother wanted a sister here
Always. I was the youngest: I was then
An undergraduate at Oxford. I came
Once for a long vacation. I remember...
(Act II, Sc. II, pp. 331-332)
This is all what has been disturbing Harry. He wants some information about his father and these
are given by Agatha. One more point which is very important that Agatha tells him that his father
wanted to marry her and kill Amy but he could not. Harry's father commits suicide due to the
guilt complex when Amy was pregnant. So he inherits that complex of his father and this is the
reason of conflict and confusion of Harry. Agatha considers Harry as if her own child. She
declares, “I felt that you in some way mine!/And in any case I should have no other child (Act II,
Sc.ii, p. 333).
Harry's tension, confusion and conflict is relieved by Agatha. Now the Eumenides again
appear but this time he is not afraid of them and he watches them carefully and try to guess what
they want from him:
... and this time
You cannot think that I am surprised to see you.
And you shall not think that I am afraid to see you.
This time you are real, this time, you are outside me...
... I know that you are ready,
Ready to leave Wishwood and I am going with you.
(Act II, Sc.ii, p. 336)
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Harry decides to leave the house and asks Agatha about the meetings in future. She replies,
“Meeting is for strangers/Meeting is for those who do not know each other” (Act II, Sc.ii , p.
337). Amy blames Agatha, “... you tell him to go/... you wish him to go/... you wish him to go
(Act II, Sc. ii, p. 337). And Harry tells his mother!
Now they will lead me
I shall be safe with them; I am not safe here
... I shall have to learn
... Somewhere on the other side of despair
I must follow the bright Angle (Act II, Sc. ii, p. 339).
Amy rebukes Agatha that “Thirty five years ago/You took my husband from me/Now you take
my son” (Act II, Sc.iii, p .. 340). She answers, “What did I take? Nothing that you ever had/What
did I get? Thirty years of solitude (Act II, Sc. iii, p. 340).
And we see in the end that Harry is going but it is not obvious and clear where he is
going. Most people of the household think that he is going to be a missionary but we are put into
confusion and tension by his words that, “I never said that I was going to be a missionary (Act II,
Sc. iii, p. 344). Amy dies due to this shock. Thus, we see that the play ends in a tragic mood.
The end of the play is also full of confusion and tension. It is not clear to us where Harry
is going and what he has to do. Will he become a
missionary or ... ? In this context M.K. Naik writes:
. . . Michael Redgrave, the actor, asked Eliot during the rehearsal, 'What
does happen to Harry at the end?' and the dramatist replied, “I think he
and the Chauffeur go off and get jobs in the East End.” Redgrave is
supposed to have asked him to add a line suggesting this, and Eliot is
said to have added twenty-five lines next day, but the play was already
published and the lines were not added in the later editions.3
A close analysis of the play reveals that the play is a tragedy but we are in confusion that this is
the tragedy of whom? Of Harry, Of Amy or of Agatha because all these three characters have
been suffering from a psychological disorder. M.K. Naik helps us to comprehend this problem
that, “it is actually in the presentation of the drama of Harry's mind and soul that the real flow
lies,”4 The Family Reunion cannot be regarded as the tragedy of Amy and Agatha for the simple
reasons that Amy dies in the end and Agatha suffers from solitude during her life time. It is a
drama of Harry's conflict and confusion.
But one thing remains doubtful and that is the title of the play, The Family Reunion.
There is no concrete Reunion. Actually it is Spiritual Reunion - Soul's union with God. Harry
represents the soul here. Apparently the birthday is to be celebrated with the purpose that all the
members of the household will assemble and that will be The Family Reunion. But John and
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Arther could not reach and so the Reunion remains unaccomplished. There is no Reunion of
Harry and Amy or of Harry and Agatha or of Harry and Mary. The family remains un-reunited.
According to Carol H. Smith, “Harry rejects all human love in favour of God .... the
theatre's original function is to express God's presence... in The Family Reunion there is a
recognition that the period of desolation is a preparation for a more positive stage of final union
with the divine principle.”5
Conclusion :
The Family Reunion has proved itself a successful attempt of psychological study of Harry,
the protagonist of the play and other characters. It is a drawing room drama of 1930s. It is the
discovery of Harry of his religious vocation as a result of his sense of guilty psychology.
REFERENCES :
1
Sunil Serker, T.S. Eliot: Poetry Plays and Prose (Delhi: Nice Printing Press, 2000), p. 156.
2
T.S. Eliot, “The Family Reunion” in Complete Poems and Plays (London: Faber and Faber,
1969), p. 292. All the subsequent quotations are taken from the same edition of the text and in
each case the act, the scene, and the page number have been given within parenthesis.
3
M.K. Naik, ed., Mighty Voices: Studies in TS Eliot (New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann, 1980),
p.100.
4
5
Ibid., p. 66.
Sheila Sullivan, ed., Critics on T.S. Eliot (London: George Alten and Unwin Ltd., 1973), pp. 9495.
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