The Role of the "Guardians" in T. S. Eliot's Cocktail Party

The Role ofthe "Guardians" in T.S. Eliot's Cocktail Party HILDEGARD HAMMERSCHMIDT When T.S. Eliot's Cocktail Party had its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949, the audience was not only deeply impressed with the play, but obviously also deeply puzzled. On 24 August 1949 the Scotsman commented: "it [The Cocktail Party] is bound to be some kind of message to humanity.'" Yet it could not be stated precisely what the message was about. And after more than thirty years The Cocktail Party still contains some ofthe enigmas which at that time confused even the most sophisticated critics.2 In the meantime the European drama has, of course, seen a number of various new theatrical currents: the "Theatre of Despair," a worldwide reception of the plays of Bertolt Brecht, the "New Wave" and the "Second Wave" in the British theatre, the renaissance of the history play, the "Theatre of Cruelty," the "Comedy of Menace," the "Theatre of the Absurd" and the new documentary, to mention only the most important. With the plays of Beckett and Ionesco, however, literature in general seemed to have reached a kind of spiritual dead end. In attempting to find a way out, playwrights tended to employ magic and the occult', striving to restore the original density and strangeness of the world.4 Looking back now, one realizes that the craving for the more mysterious aspects of reality seems to have been anticipated in Eliot's Cocktail Party with its strong emphasis on ritual magic. Up to now literary critics have investigated only peripherally the phenomenon ofthe supernatural in Eliot's play. In his article "Fear in the Way: The Design of Eliot's Drama,'" Michael Goldman rates the work of Eliot's "ghosts" or "spirits" (also denoted as "shadows, furies, spectres, phantoms, spooks, guardians , or even saints and martyrs ..."6) as a highly effective structural principle and a powerful dramatic force. Yet his definition, "The ghosts are all versions of the 'fear in the way' ... "7, is too inaccurate essentially to deepen our understanding of Eliot's "ghosts." Vinod Sena, however, offers quite a different view of the significance of the "guardians." He reminds us of the fact that the fate of the protagonists is manipulated from outside.8 In this context it is The "Guardians" in Eliot's Cocktail Party 55 equally important to note that the guardians' power appears "more than human.'" The rather mysterious workings of their power even remind Sena of a kind of "secret society"'" behind it all. With regard to the depth and significance the play gains by including this particular group, he explains: Remove the Guardians. and Celia, Peterand the Chamberlaynes represent between them a few typical - but not all - the directions life can take. But enter the Guardians, the outsiders, the human agents of the "final eye," to stage-manage and pronounce, and behold - they exhaust between them all the latent possibilities of life. .. . It is the Guardians, then, who reduce life to two possible ways and, by implying the superiority of the one and the mediocrity of the other. drive a wedge between them. ... By their entry they might introduce all kinds ofproblems; but without them the play would be reduced to nothing. Ambivalence, indeed, is of their very essence. [I But what hints do we really get to enable us to assume that the "guardians" Reilly, Julia, and Alex are, indeed, "human agents of the 'final eye'" or magicians, or even magi, whose workings can be regarded as the execution of ritual magic? To answer this question I shall proceed from two different levels of thematic reference in the play: first, from a level of simple hints, allusions, and insinuations related to magic; and second, from a level on which the power of the "guardians" over the other characters is obvious and the context of the supernatural events becomes more transparent. It is necessary, of course, to define the characteristics ofa magus or magician, and to document from the text the assumption that magic is the play's central motif, responsible also for the progress of the action. Finally, I shall attempt to make a general evaluation of the position of...