purgatory

While the tree and house are both destroyed, the Old Man remembers a time when

they were alive. Th e house was at one time a place where “great people lived and died”

(35), but his father burned it down. Likewise, the tree was not always barren; lightening

blasted it. Th e Old Man says, “I saw it fi fty years ago, before the thunderbolt had riven

it, green leaves, ripe leaves, leaves thick as butter” (33-34). Th e bolt of lightening, like the

burning of the house, can therefore be seen as the traumatic moment when the characters

were torn from the sight of God and placed in the purgatorial nightmare they are forced

to relive. Th e Old Man repeatedly invokes the tree by way of explanation, although his

70 The South Carolina Review

words are lost on his son. He says, “study that tree,” as if it holds the answer to everything

that is wrong with their world.

Th e Old Man sees the ghosts of his parents re-enact the night of his conception,

which he understands as the moment that ultimately led to the blasting of the tree. He

tries to explain to his son why the ghosts reappear:

Th e souls in Purgatory that come back

To habitations and familiar spots …

Re-live their transgressions, and that not once,

But many times; they know at last

Th e consequence of those transgressions ….

Th ere is no help but in themselves

And in the mercy of God. (34)

Like the ravens in “Th e Two Trees,” his parents’ ghosts are never at peace and are

forced to repeat their actions on earth until they are granted forgiveness by God or by the

living. Similarly, the Old Man is also in a kind of living purgatory, as he not only witnesses

his parents’ unrest, but also repeats his own sins. He murdered his father in revenge for

his burning down the house, and as he watches his parents relive their transgressions he

relives his own by killing his son. Mistakenly choosing a blood price for atonement, he

believes that by killing his son he will set his mother’s spirit free. Immediately after he kills

the boy, the tree is bathed in white light. He says, “Study that tree. It stands there like a

purifi ed soul, all cold, sweet, glistening light” (39). Yet as soon as he thinks he is ready to

move on and start a new life, he hears hoof-beats, the sign of his father’s ghost approaching

his mother’s door. At that moment he knows that he has not only failed to save his

mother’s soul, but that he also has damned his own. He laments his fate, crying “Twice a

murderer and all for nothing” (39). Th e play ends with his appeal to God to release her

spirit, but not his own, as if he doesn’t understand that he too is trapped in a living hell.

Th e illumination of the tree does not represent a release from purgatory, but rather draws

the audience’s attention to the tree itself as evidence of its continued infl uence on the

characters, both alive and dead.

Figure 3. Illustration by Victor Brown accompanying

W. B. Yeats’s lyric “Th e Wicked

Hawthorn Tree” in A Broadside No. 2 (New

Series), Cuala Press, February, 1935. Set before

the ruined Castle Dargan, the tree and

lyric, fi rst employed in the dance-play Th e

King of the Great Clock Tower (1935), pp.

11-13, anticipate the setting of Purgatory.

Jack Yeats’s numerous illustrations for the

Cuala series, which his brother edited, may

well have been known to Beckett.

The South Carolina Review 71

What is immediately apparent from reading the play is that the tree serves a function

that goes beyond symbolism. It represents much more than the bleakness and suff ering of

the purgatorial state. Rather, it stands for a whole set of complicated spiritual beliefs that

make up the entire meta-narrative of humanity’s fall from grace and potential for redemption.

In his book Yeats’s Iconography, F. A. C. Wilson argues that Yeats relied on archetypal

religious icons to communicate his meaning:

[Yeats] believed in a collective unconscious which would operate to suggest his

… meanings to all readers … [and] that any symbol which at some time or

other in the world’s history had been a part of religion would retain for ever …

a peculiar depth and power of communication. (13)

Th e importance of Wilson’s work lies in his ability to show how many of Yeats’s

works are framed by his understanding and use of religious icons. He did not simply

co-opt an already existing symbol, but rather used its archetypal connotations to coin his

own, blending and bending traditions as he saw fi t to create an entire symbol-system that

would then aff ect all of the words on the page (15). Th e point that is most relevant to my

argument, however, is much simpler: Yeats used iconic symbols to convey a particular, if

not explicit, meaning to his audience. While there may still be room for interpretation, an

understanding of how he has used tree imagery in his other works certainly shapes what

kind of meaning will be inferred from the play. It is his way of silently stepping into the

play and telling his audience what to expect and why.

Th is is not to suggest that only certain initiated readers or members of the audience

would be able to appreciate Yeats’s play for what it is. As Katherine Worth argues in Th e

Irish Drama of Europe from Yeats to Beckett, his plays have diff erent levels of meaning that

make them accessible to anyone. But she also points to Yeats’s use of symbolism as a way

of communicating directly with his audience. She argues that he “assumed that symbols

had the power to change our mode of thinking by luring us to the ‘threshold of sleep’ and

evoking ‘indefi nable and yet precise emotions’” (158). Th us, even if the members of the

audience are unfamiliar with his use of Kabbalistic iconography, they will nevertheless

be aff ected by the image of the blasted tree because of its unconscious, archetypal connotations.

In either case, Yeats uses symbols to frame his audience’s understanding and to

communicate with them on some level.