The domesticity of T. S. Eliot

T. s. DAVID I suppose there must be a one every 11.£",-,/1,1';, this is how the other half of or Mrs. m while the women lie SleI;!,PIIE:SS, COllOtlLn.$t is in the the COrlCe'llt ment offers And built "under the of the stars" and the ends with a the ones watch over tlle the Moon herself influence the Eliot's "n'l"O..",,,,+ home. "Home is where one starts chorus is to be each side of H and in a sense, in houses: not on the oa·ttU~ne:lCl. ,uV""'''''''';:!, like us, have a life of their own. The is hinted at " which to some critics did not seem much a house. To be sure, the house in "Un......... 4- 1....III"I.r'lFnn,·· in ; the THE DOMESTICITY OF T. S. ELIOT 383 It is the garden which commands the attention, the garden which is described with meticulous realism, its roses laid out in fonnal patterns , its pool of concrete within the box circle brown and corroded except when the sun fills it with the illusion of water out of light. Of the house, nothing is known from this poem, except that it has a door which leads into the garden. The old manor-house in Gloucestershire, near which he once visited and from which he took the name Burnt Norton, apparently haunted Elioes imagination, none the less. When he had finished the first Quartet, he did not begin the second, "East Coker." He wrote a play, The Family Reunion, a play which centred in and was developed around just such an old house as the one in Gloucestershire. He called it Wishwood, but it was really Burnt Norton, the archetype of all old houses, "whether in Argos or England." Amy, the dowager owner of Wishwood, is not one of Eliot's favoured people. She cannot see the transitory nature of things. She fails to realize what Eliot has said in another context, that "dust inbreathed was a house." For her, Wishwood is life. It is she who has striven through the years to hold the place together, while she waited for the favourite son to return and "take command." When this eight-years' dream proves false, the intensity of her feeling is shattering. She speaks in tenns of the bitter and homely realities: So you will all leave me! An old woman alone in a damned house. I will let the walls crumble. Why should I worry To keep the tiles on the roof, combat the endless weather, Resist the wind? fight with increasing taxes And unpaid rents and tithes? nourish investments With wakeful nights and patient calculations With the solicitor, the broker, agent? Why should I? It is no concern of the body in the tomb To bother about the upkeep. Let the wind and rain do that. Wishwood is, as it happens, a relatively minor element in the overall design of The Family Reunion. It has little to do with the basic theme of the play, since any fixed environment would have served Eliot's apparent purpose-to provide a prison from which his hero, Harry, Lord Monchensey, must escape to the uncertain search for an ineffable salvation. Wishwood, nevertheless, is an entity. Eliot has developed his dialogue with such subtlety that the spectator is not allowed to forget for one moment the presence of the old house. It is through Amy, of course, who has forced herself to fulfil its purposes, that Wishwood is chiefly personified, but its personality vibrates throughout the play. Even the chorus, the traditionally detached !:lB4 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY COIttnbu1:e to In an old house there is and more is heard than is "'1-'1..11'\.1::"11. And what is remains in the room, for the future to hear The climactic scene in who is ",","1,..,,.,,,"'1'1 the son who is DursuLea not world but What have been and what has been Point to one which is and murmurs: I looked thrIOU~:h When the sun was Shrnm:g And heard in the distance I was not you were not voices.... Wlsh'NOIDd. are the voices "hidden exAnd what did not...