Family Reunion, The

Family Reunion, The, verse play by T.S. Eliot, produced and published in 1939.

Harry, Lord Monchensey, returns to his English country home, after eight years abroad following the death at sea of his young wife. The occasion is the birthday of his mother, Amy, imperious matriarch of the family, which also includes her sisters, Ivy, Violet, and Agatha, the last being principal of a women's college; her brothers‐in‐law, Gerald and Charles Piper; and the penniless cousin Mary. Harry does not conceal his contempt for the others, and shows his neurotic, guilt‐ridden condition by a blurted confession that he murdered his wife. He has returned in search of inner peace, but the avenging spirits (Eumenides) now become visible, even to Agatha and Mary, although not to the others. Anxious for her son's sanity, Amy summons Dr. Warburton, and the doctor warns Harry that any sudden emotion may kill his mother. Harry and Agatha have a talk, and he discovers the basis of their sympathy when she reveals that his father had loved her, not Amy, who had used him merely to have the children and home she desired. The father's frustrated desire to murder his wife seems to have been inherited by the son, whose sense of guilt is part of the fated atonement. Harry departs to complete his “pilgrimage of expiation,” and the shock kills Amy, at which the family unity she has sustained is destroyed.