Ironical Title:
The title of the play is ironical. The Family Reunion suggests that the play would depict the coming together of a family, the happy reunion of its members, after years of separation. But the unexpected happens. Contrary to expectation, the play depicts disintegration of a family, whose members come together only to separate during the course of the same evening.
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| Play The Family Reunion— Appropriateness of the Title |
Two Levels of Life:
In the play , there can be seen two levels of life the normal and the abnormal . We expect the normal but are faced at every step with the abnormal, not to make his drama Eliot has used everyday experience natural, but to show its inadequacy. He was used every possible means to shake our confidence in the validity of the world of reality. When we see the family gathered for Amy's birthday, we expect one kind of family reunion but we find different kind portrayed. Ordinary persons like aunts and uncles begin to make choral speeches. The scene between Mary and Harry which appears to have a romantic interest ends in rejection of human love in favour of the love of God. Finally the most shocking thing is the appearance of the Eumenides, the Greek goddesses, into the drawing room of Monchensey family.
Gathering of Various Family Members at Wishwood:
As the play opens, we find that the various members of the Monchensey family have come to Wishwood at the invitation of Amy, Dowager Lady Monchensey. They have been invited to celebrate her birthday as well as to welcome home her eldest son, Harry, who is returning after an absence of eight years. There are Charles and Gerald, the two younger brothers of Amy's dead husband. There are also her younger sisters, Agatha, Ivy and Violet. There is also Mary, the daughter of a deceased cousin. But the family reunion is not complete, for Amy's two sons, John and Arthur, are waited for, but they never arrive. They are involved in accidents and so are forced to stay away.
Emotionally Isolation:
The members of the family are not emotionally united. This is clearly brought out in the very beginning of the play. Amy Complains that she has grown old and so finds it very cold at Wishwood. Agatha corrects her and says, “Wishwood was always a cold place, Amy.” Union implies love and understanding, but there is no love lost between the two sisters. By the end of the play the animosity of the two sisters erupts into the open, with Amy complaining and accusing Agatha. Thirty - five years you took my husband from me And now you take my son.
Mary's Isolation and Frustration:
Mary too is isolated and frustrated. She is of thirty and still unmarried. She loves Harry, but has not been able to marry him so far. When she is referred to as belonging to the younger generation, she retorts, “I do not belong to any generations”, and leaves the room much offended.
Harry's Being Emotionally Isolated:
Harry, too, is emotionally isolated from the rest of the family. They fail to understand his strange distraction and agitation. They fail to realise that he is a ‘spiritual character’, one who cannot live like them on the ordinary, physical plane. He suffers from a sense of sin. His mother has no understanding of his true nature. Mary, too, tempts him with her love. It is only Agatha who understands him, and enables him to realise the true nature of his sin.
Involvement of two Major Characters in the Family Reunion:
So far the subject of reunion is concerned, two major characters are involved. They are Amy and Harry. Amy has invited all the members of her family to celebrate her birthday. It has become a special occasion, for her eldest son, Harry, is also arriving. She wants to establish Harry as the master of Wishwood and assume the responsibilities of the family. She also desires Harry to marry Mary whom he had loved in his childhood and whom she had kept for eight years in expectation of this marriage.
Family Member's Not Agreeing with Amy's Views:
Amy gives various instructions to the family members. She asks them that they should not express any grief or regret at Harry's wife's death. But the family members do not agree with Amy's views. They all feel that they have wasted their time by coming here. Mary does not want to be tool in Amy's hands and wants to escape.
Harry's Upsetting Amy's Plan:
It is Harry who upsets Amy's plan of family reunion. As soon as he enters into the drawing - room, he stops suddenly at the door and stares at the window. He does not respond to the welcome given by family members. Instead, he asks them to look at the window:
“Can't you see them? You don't see them, but I see them. And they see them.”
He declares that the invisibles creatures have pursued him. The family members are shocked to see his condition. Amy consoles him by saying that he can be happy at Wishwood because nothing has changed there. Harry bluntly says that it is absurd that nothing has changed. He says that he is not the person who left Wishwood eight years back. Agatha understands him. But Harry's problem has shattered the reality of their world.
Harry's Bidding Farewell:
Harry realises that the ordinary life of material comforts is not for him, and that he must leave that very moment to follow the path of his election. He goes away bidding farewell to his mother. Amy's dreams, her hopes, are shattered and she is broken - hearted. Her son has left her, Mary and Agatha also intend leaving her. She exclaims pathetically that they would all leave her. The shock kills her, she lies a victim of the tragic irony of life.
Thus in the play there is no union. There is only disintegration and disunion. If at all there is to be ‘union’, it would be in the nether world. There would be re - united the frustrated wife and the husband who tried to kill her. There may also be re - united the mother and her beloved son, who in this life elects the path of martyrdom.
