As a character says elsewhere in The Cocktail Party: If we are the captain of our ship, the ship’s course has already been set and the ship is much to large to avoid the iceberg ahead. The accumulation of the past directs our future as the momentum of time pushes us forward toward the past’s ultimate consequence. To borrow a term from physics, life has an interia to it which cannot be overcome.

We do not live with free will, but only the illusion of freedom. It seems that our “moment of freedom” is always yesterday, always remaining at an inaccessible distance.

That is one consideration.Īnd another is this: it is a serious matterįor Eliot, we are free to make choices, yet paradoxically these choices are never free. You will change your mind, but you are not free.įorces in your life and in the lives of others I have half a mind to change my mind now. I have come to tell you that you will change your mind,īut that it will not matter. Until you recover from having made a decision. You will not be ready to change your mind I have come to remind you- you have made a decision.Īre you thinking that I may have changed my mind? Today is the day of opportunity and infinite possibilities – isn’t it? We wish to be free and make our own choices to both remedy the past and direct the outcome of our lives. In the quote below, Edward’s struggle typifies the struggle of all of us. In insightfully reserved style, Eliot sums up perfectly what it means to be human in The Cocktail Party, exploring the timeless issue of free will/determinism, among many others. They each learn that they have been deceiving themselves and must face life’s realities. She is eventually brought back by a mysterious Unidentified Guest at the party, who turns out to be the psychiatrist whom Edward and Lavinia both consult. The play concerns the marriage of Edward and Lavinia Chamberlayne, opening with Lavinia leaving Edward just as they are about to host a cocktail party at their London home. Considerably more plainspoken than Eliot’s earlier plays and poetry, it’s really worth seeking out if you haven’t read it.

In fact, it’s become something of a Mockingbird stand-by, literature-wise. Eliot’s late play and masterpiece, The Cocktail Party. We haven’t exactly hidden our love for T.S.

Ts eliot's the cocktail party