Duality of Action in the Play:
According to Eliot, a poetic play is more expressive than a prose play, because its action moves on two levels, the ordinary physical or material level and the spiritual level corresponding to the two levels of human existence. A poetic play has a doubleness of action which the prose - play does not have. In The Family Reunion we have this duality of action. On the ordinary material plane it may be regarded as an ironic comedy of manners, or an ordinary thriller depicting a story of crime, detection and punishment. On a higher spiritual level, it presents a story of sin and expiation for that sin. These two levels or planes of action are closely integrated through Downing, who may not be a spiritual character, but who has superior psychological insight.
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| Play The Family Reunion As the Play of Detection, Crime and Punishment |
Modern and Realistic Setting:
The scene is laid at Wishwood. There are assembled a number of aunts and uncles – Ivy, Violet, Agatha, Mary, Charles and Gerald - to celebrate the birthday of Amy, the Dowger Lady Monchensey, and to welcome to eldest son Harry who is returning home after an absence of eight years. Their conversation is the ordinary banal and trivial drawing - room conversation of contemporary genteel society. They are concerned only physical comforts, and except for Agatha show no awareness of the higher values of life. Though it is a family reunion, ironically enough the various members of the family show little understanding or love of each other.
Depiction of a Story of Sin, Suffering and Expiation:
However, this thriller - like appeal of the play is not its main source of interest. On a higher and spiritual level, it depicts a story of sin, suffering, expiation and atonement, and this action on the higher plane is its chief source of interest. The play depicts Harry's transition from his consciousness of his own guilt to his awareness that in reality his suffering arises from original or inherited sin. Thus awareness results from the revelations of Agatha regarding his own past and the past of his family. The Monchensey family is under a curse and he elects to suffer, expiate and redeem his family from the curse.
Efforts made by Ordinary Characters to Stage a Drama of Crime, Detection and Punishment:
Downing is called and questioned behind the back of Harry, the purpose being to find out the truth about the death of Harry's wife. Similarly, Dr. Warburton talks to Harry alone, the purpose being to find out the truth about the death of his wife, as well as to arouse his pity and concern for the state of his mother's health. The arrival of Sergeant Winchell and Harry's strange behaviour, the secrecy which is maintained regarding the accidents in which Arthur and John are involved, are other melodramatic and sensational elements in the play.
Lacking in Spiritual Insights but Having only Psychological Insights:
These two levels of action - The material and the physical - are linked together by revealing the psychological state of the hero who suffers from a sense of sin, and the agent of this revelation is Downing. Downing has no spiritual insights, but he has psychological insights. Downing greatly lacks in spirituals insights because he lives on the worldly plane and knows only worldly worries and tension. He has been with Harry for a long time, and therefore, he has a good understanding of his master's problems. Downing knows better through which problems man has to suffer.
Uniting the Gap of the Two Actions by Downing's Understanding:
Downing realises that Harry is psychic and his great psychological understanding bridges the gap between the two levels of action. D. E. Jones observes that there is a wide gap between the spiritual and physical levels, but this gap has been bridged by the dramatist through Downing. His psychological insight is the link that unites the two actions into a coherent whole. Here Eliot has displayed his great skill in the plot - construction of the play.
Providing a Poetic under - Pattern of Greek and Biblical Myth and Legend:
The real significance of the play arises from its poetic under - pattern. On this deeper plane, The Family Reunion is a play embodying the Christian myth of sin, suffering for that sin, and the ultimate regeneration and redemption through that suffering. Harry has committed the sin of murdering his wife (or at least of willing to murder her), suffers from intense spiritual anguish as a consequence, and does not know even a moment's rest either by night or day during the eight years which have elapsed since she died of drowning. The real interest of the play arises from the portrayal of his deep spiritual anguish. The dramatist shows how through intense suffering he comes to realise the nature of his sin, and so instead of living a worldly, comfortable life at Wishwood, he goes out to expiate his sin, and then to achieve liberation.
