T. S. Eliot's Quest for a Theme in His Plays

T. S. ELIOT’S QUEST FOR A THEME
IN HIS PLAYS

RAM SEVAK SINGH
Lecturer in English, Gujarat University, Ahemadabad

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was a dramatist even before he wrote any play. Though he had started his career as a poet he was preoccupied with the need for poetic drama in the post-war world. He set himself to analyse the plays of the Elizabethans and the Jacobeans in the early twenties and thus to understand why the plays of Webster, Marston, Dekker etc., lacked the charm and appeal of Shakespeare. Compared with these masters the dramatists of the later period looked pigmies. While studying them he was trying to feel the pulse of the drama and was, as a matter of fact, preparing himself mentally to launch upon the career of a cautious and conscientious playwright. It seemed to him that what he thought he was unable to express in poetry, he could present through a dramatic situation. He knew ‘The tendency of prose drama is to emphasize the ephemeral and superficial; if we want to get at the permanent and universal we tend to express ourselves in verse (‘Dialogue on Dramatic poetry’, Selected Essays, p-46). And this was enough to instill confidence in him.

After a decade-long preparation Eliot wrote Sweeney Agonistes (1928) which he could not complete. Sweeney is a typical ordinary man seeking sensuous pleasures and comforts. As he lives on the surface he has not fathomed the agonies of the modern man. Not that he lacked spiritual insights, but now he does not realise them. Now he is hollow and forsaken. The plants of his spiritual experiences have dried up on the waste land of this age. Like Milton’s Samson Azonistes he has experienced death in life and has found life in death. ‘Sweeney’ has been occupying the mind of Eliot for many years before coming to its own in this play. One can see the figure of Sweeney taking shape through the poems–‘Sweeney Erect’, ‘Sweeney among the Nightingales’, ‘Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service’ and ‘The Waste Land’. As his attitude is rational and secular, Sweeney knows that the Sabbath is necessary for relaxation after a week’s work. No religious sanctity attaches (and there is no need for it) to such prescriptions of the Church. He drinks much and does not care for the opinion of the world which believes in decorum and restraint. He blurts out whatever comes to his mind but strangely enough his speech is never without a pattern. One can see his disillusionment in his statement that

Nothing at all but three things
Birth and copulation, and death.
That’s all the facts when you come to brass tacks:
Birth and copulation, and death.
I’ve been born, and once is enough.
You don’t remember, but I remember,
Once is enough.
–Collected Poems: 1909-1935. p. 127

It’s enough that he was born once; even if there is something like rebirth, he would not like to be born again to undergo the same tragic experiences. This he had learnt from an incident: a friend of his who used to come to his place for drinks raped a girl and she died of pain. Sweeney reflected for a moment and concluded:

Any man might do a girl in
Any man has to, needs to, wants to
Once in a life-time, do a girl in.
–Ibid, p. 130

He could never know whether the girl was dead and that man was alive, or he was dead and she was alive, or both were dead, or both were alive. If he was dead, the rent collector and the milk man were alive, and if they were alive, then definitely he was dead. As the world depends much for its safety on the elimination of Sweeney-like people, it was inevitable that in his death exulted the people who accept the ideals and notions that please them, and not those which show them the reality behind the reality. Whatever the significance of his experiences, Sweeney was unable to express them effectively. He failed to convince the audience of his convictions.

Called upon by E. Martin, Eliot wrote his next pageant play, The Rock (1934) for a specific purpose, i. e., to raise money for the erection of a Church. It is somewhat puzzling to think how devoted the playwright was in this kind of work. Though a Catholic he took this work on himself more on philosophical grounds than on religious. In a modern city like London if a Church is to be founded, should it be taken as a heap of bricks and stones? If Churches are built and their need is felt even today, it is because ‘our lime present is time past’. The foundations of the Church are laid on a rock which is indestructible. To suggest impersonality seven men and ten women come with half-masks on their faces. In the beginning the chorus discusses our ‘knowledge of words and ignorance of the word’ and thereby highlights the spiritual illness of the present times. By and by the Rock, in the role of a character, led by a boy comes to export the audience to strengthen its will-power. Contrasted with this class of people who believe in religion and think that without Churches their religion will crumble, are presented the workers who, unconcerned with the ‘why’, go on doing the day’s work for their livelihood. The Churches have fallen, no doubt, but not as a result of the onslaughts of political or non-religious forces, but as they have grown weak from within. It is these Churches which, Eliot says, will lead him on to light and freedom–

Darkness now, then
Light.
Light.                –The Rock, p. 48

With the word ‘light’ ends the First Act and the whole theatre is flooded with light. In the Second Part is reviewed the history of man. In pre-historic age the face of earth was covered with darkness; but on the birth of Lord Jesus the sheet of darkness disappeared and the dawn of happiness could be seen descending on the earth. It was so not till long . Only in the recent past the change has occurred:

Men have left god not for other gods, they say, but for
no god; and this has never happened before
That men both deny Eods and worship gods, professing first Reason,
And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.
The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, what we have to do
But stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards
In an age which advances progressively wards?
–Ibid, p. 51

But luckily, the playwright concludes, Church is still alive to the spiritual needs of man. It will continue to show man the path of truth and knowledge. Not that there were no difficulties in the past, rather the contrary, ‘the Temple is forever building, forever to be destroyed, forever to be restored.’ The truth is

And if blood of Martyrs is to flow on the steps
We must first build the steps.
–The Rock, p. 42

In spite of the fact that The Rock fetched money and satisfied the church-goers, it lacks the smoothness, the balance and the universal appeal of a play. The joints are clearly visible, and the chorus has not risen above the voice of the playwright himself. There is no harmony between the thought and the action of the play. The next play Murder in the Cathedral (1935) was also written on commission for those people who had gone in all seriousness to the Canterbury Cathedral to observe the martyr’s day of St. Thomas Becket. Eliot knew, they could ‘put up with poetry’ if he gave them, as they were the elite and the enlightened few, who would be the last persons to raise objections to the homage may be in poetry, paid to the revered martyr. The playwright took advantage of this situation and made use of poetry to the fullest extent. It is with this play that the true poetic play dates its revival.

In this play again the playwright takes the same issue for discussion: the place of the priest in the world. As a matter of fact this is the central problem with which Eliot seems to be pre-occupied in all his plays (despite the difference in setting and circumstances). St. Thomas Becket had renounced political power for the Archbishop’s job for he knew that separation from God and faith in any other power would mean degradation and death. The whole atmosphere was charged with danger. On one hand when efforts were being made to drag him into the quagmire of politics, on the other hand, some lackeys were out to declare him a rebel. In such circumstances how far was it desirable and practicable to stick to his standpoint? He had four big temptations–his glorious past, when he had spent many a carefree evening doing boating; his days of power, when people readily followed his policies (he could enjoy that distinction just for his asking); his patriotism; he could prove his salt by joining hands with his government against King Henry; lastly, the strongest and the most charming argument was his renown after death. If he could die for the Church and for his principles he could be an immortal martyr in the annals of the world. It is the saints and the martyrs that rule the world from their tombs. It is to them that people in thousands and lakhs go to pay homage, and not the King. He was unable to take a decision soon. It was only after he had given the sermon (in which he gave expression to his own conflict that he felt relieved of the obsession. Now he was ready neither to court nor to escape death.

Death will come only when I am worthy,
And I am worthy, there is no danger.
I have therefore only to make perfect my will.
–Murder in the Cathedral. p. 75

This clears the cloud of doubt and he proceeds with full confidence to face the four Knights who had come to charge him with treason, and subsequently, to kill him. On his death, the Knights establish that they were innocent as it was the Archbishop himself who had planned to court death; it was a case of suicide and not murder, and Becket himself was responsible for his death.

In this play poetry dominates, and the conflict is more mental than physical. Probably, by concentrating on the mental conflicts of et the playwright has tried to suggest that Lord Jesus also had the same conflicts before renouncing pelf and power to spread the message of God. On this score only is the fourth temptation more significant than the others. But at the end of the play the Knights come to justify the murder of Becket and occupy the stage for quite a long time. It may have served to present the opinion of the aristocrats, but it fails to fit in the structure of the play. By stressing the secular and diplomatic need of the day it, perhaps, showed the contrast between the nobility of Becket’s soul and the grossness of the Knights; but the fact remains that it was dramatically unnecessary. It was a repetition of what was already spoken by them while arguing with Becket. These Knights symbolise the political and secular power which has always been trying to stifle the divine messages of the martyrgs, but has not succeeded in extirpating the institution of the Church.

Though Murder in the Cathedral was successfully acted and it appealed to the contemporary opinion, it failed to satisfy the dramatist. Eliot confessed that with this play he had entered into a blind alley. He had made use of the chorus in these plays, but now he felt that the use of the chorus was desirable only in cases where the story was mythological or legendary. It would look ridiculous to put in a play of modern setting a chorus to chant poetry and philosophise upon the events and incidents. He, therefore, decided to use certain new techniques in his next play The Family Reunion (1939). Though he could not do away with the chorus even in this play he was successful in giving the language a contemporary tinge and peel off the rhetorical vesture. It was necessary, though, that he diluted poetry and brought speech nearer to the common man; he could do so only at the cost of the poetry. This process continued so long that in the last play The Elder Statesman (1958) poetry is hardly visible. He has always wanted to give expression to the conflict of modern life, and at the altar of this aim he has sacrificed the best asset of his plays, that is, even the poetry which was mainly responsible for the appeal of Murder in the Cathedral.

As in ‘Eumenides’ (the third part of Aeschylus’s Oresteia) Orestes had to face the Furies, here in The Family Reunion Harry Monchensy felt obsessed with the thought of murder. Orestes had murdered his mother who, in league with her lover, had plotted the murder of her loving husband Agamemnon. How far was he justified in his action? None could decide, and consequently, in the meeting convened by Goddess Athene votes were cast by the mortals as well as the immortals, and at the end it was found that the consensus of opinion was in favour of Orestes (though the votes cast were approximately equal on both sides). In Eliot’s play, Harry’s wife had fallen into the sea and died a natural death, but ever since, he had smarted under the illusion that he was the cause of her death. If he had not thrown her into the sea, he had not done also, anything to save her. Was it so because he had wished her death? Guilt-ridden he felt so nervous that he could not stand the comforts, of Wishwood where his mother had planned everything to suit his taste, temperament and the needs. She had brought up Mary, his cousin only for him, and in her marriage she was going to see the consummation of her desires. This was to be the true ‘family reunion’ she had contemplated. During the winter season, everything was cold and dull, and her son’s arrival after eight long years was to be a very warm experience for her. But, alas, when he came he came guilt-ridden and forlorn. His mother and his aunt knew that his destiny lay in the search for spiritual peace. He also knew that his illness was worse than he had imagined. It was neither his conscience nor his mind that was diseased, rather, it was the world in which he was born to live. Even Mary’s love, the only solace to his broken heart, could not take him out of the limbo of moroseness in which he had thrown himself. It was only after his aunt had told him, how his father also had suffered the same pangs of agony, and had experienced the same guilt, that he regained his vitality. In love with his aunt his father had wished the death of his pregnant mother. He realised, to his consolation, that it was the inherited guilt of his father, not his own, that had tortured him so long. What his aunt had said was perhaps correct:

You are the consciousness of your unhappy family
Its bird sent flying through the purgatorial flame.
–The Family Reunion. p. 105

He was now convinced that his aunt had understood not only the event he had come across, but also what had happened to him inside his soul. Now he knew

that all my life has been a flight
And phantoms fed upon me while I fled.
–Ibid. p. 113

and, therefore, he decided

That my business is not to run away, but to pursue,
Not to avoid being found, but to seek.
Ibid. p. 113

To expiate the sin, whether his or somebody else’s, he left home for a secluded place where he could do what God had ordained. Consequently his mother died and the expected family reunion never came to pass.

Such moments of decision come in all the plays of Eliot. Between the alternatives given, the hero chooses the one that proves fatal to the smug world, but elevating to those who care for ideals. In Murder in the Cathedral Becket decided to submit to the will of the Knights, in The Family Reunion Harry chose to go in search of spiritual peace at the cost of his mother. In the same way in The Cocktail Party (1949) every character chooses his own destiny. When Celia goes to the unknown island to fulfil her destiny as a missionary, Edward and Lavinia decide upon continuing their conjugal life howsoever dreary it might be. Stripping them of their last pretences Reilly made Edward and Lavinia realise that they had in common

The same isolation.
A man who finds himself incapable of loving
And a woman who finds that no man can love her.
                                                                                    –The Cocktail Party. p. 110

The play had begun with a cocktail party. After Reilly had made elaborate analysis of their motives and interests, they came to accept that their happiness lay in their living together. He should give compliments to Lavinia and she should care for his health. It is through these cocktail parties which symbolise the routine life, that conjugal happiness is sought and sustained.

It may be added here that this play is patterned on Euripides’s Alcestis. Like Heracles who brought the husband of Alcestis from the grave, Reilly successfully planned to give Lavinia a psychological insight into her limitations and thus to retrieve her from the clutches of frustrations and give her to her husband. If Alcestis had chosen to die for the happiness of her husband Lavinia had decided to leave her husband alone to allow him time to think whether he could live without her. In both cases it was found that the union of the husband and wife was necessary for their happiness. The distinctive feature of Eliot’s drama is that it gives an elaborate analysis of the motives of the couple and ultimately proves that freedom from the sense of loneliness is possible only through understanding and living together. The fourth play The Confidential Clerk (1953) is based on Euripides’s Ion. Colby had inherited love for music from his father who had died an immature death, and was at no cost prepared to sacrifice his instinct for music for Sir Claude. Claude had rejected the profession of his choice to take to the financier’s job. He had earned name and money but in the eyes of Colby he had not done the right thing. One should follow the call of instinct and not the path of success. Colby would be satisfied as a second rate musician but would resign definitely, howsoever lucrative, the job of the confidential clerk. When alone he was content to be in the garden of his heart hearing the compositions of his masters, but Lucasta the daughter of Sir Claude had never felt secure in her father’s rich house and was feeling on illusions. She could not decieve the shrewd eyes or Colby, and she confessed.

I don’t like myself.
I don’t like the person I’ve forced myself to be.
–The Confidential Clerk. p. 59

She had done so because she was obsessed with a sense of terrible loneliness which

Just when you think you’re on the point of release
…..(loneliness) swoops down upon you;
When you think you’re getting out, you’re getting further in,
And you know at last that there’s no escape.
–Ibid. p. 60

Though the play is based on impossible events it suggests the same as is suggested in The Family Reunion, viz., the ineritance of father’s qualities by the son. The curse of the family in O’Niell’s play Mourning Becomes Electra is passed on from one generation to the other and the Oran family could not escape the consequences of the original sin. In Eliot’s The Elder Statesman (1958) the difference in the attitudes of the same man is suggested through the change of the character’s name, and the feelings of guilt through two blackmailers. The elder statesman who is now convalescing in a hospital after a long hectic and successful life of a politician, is even now not able to forget the two crimes he had committed: one, when he ran his car over a man and did not care to stop to see whether the man was dead, and two, when he loved an actress but did not marry her. After having lived a whole life he was unable to erase the memory of these two events. He knew that he had tried to run away from the world instead of facing it. But now, as was done by Harry of The Family Reunion, he would look into the blackmailers’ eyes and thus, would escape them for ever. He meets them and comes to realise

If a man has one person, just one in his life,
To whom he is willing to confess every thing–
And that includes, mind you, not only things criminal,
Not only turpitude, meanness and cowardice,
But also situations which are simply ridiculous,
When he has played the fool (as who has not?)–
Then he loves that person, and his love will save him.
I am afraid that I’ve never loved anyone, really,
–The Elder Statesman. p. 102

He had never understood his wife, his son and his daughter even, let alone his friends and aquaintances. People had worshipped the parts he had played; but none had seen the true man in him. When his son Michael rejected him he felt happy, because

Forthe me he rejected, I reject also.
Love has been freed from the self that pretends to be someone
And in becoming no one, I begin to live.
It is worthwhile dying, to find out what life is.
-The Elder Statesman. p. 129

So ‘in becoming no one he had become himself’, and immediately after this realisation he found that not only his children but even the blackmailers were happy. He established himself at the end of the play as a man of feelings. The life of the statesman he had lived was a mask he had put on for worldly success; but it was done only after he had taken a decision to bury his true self. It is with the force of love, he realised, that the life runs and in the absence of which we are bound to be ‘alone together’.

Although this play is not, like Murder in the Cathedral, a Christian play, it is built on Christian values–sense of guilt, purification of soul and respect for love. And these are the pillars on which the whole edifice stands. Eliot has been mainly concerned, in his plays, with religion, especially the importance of sin and expiation. He took up the central problem of society for analysis and found that man can never feel secure till he has accepted the destiny. All–Becket, Harry, Edward, Colby, and Claverton–all these characters find peace and solace only after they accept what is ordained for them by God. The plays of Eliot, therefore, should not be studied in isolation: each one stresses an aspect and all together reflect upon his approach to the spiritual crisis man is facing today. Our burden is heavy; whether the sin is ours or our grandfather’s, we all are suffering from guilt. Our modern sciences are not enough to cure us of this malaise:

It would need someone greater than the greatest doctor
To cure This illness.
–The Cocktail Party. p. 54