Destined to Hope or Remorse: T.S. Eliot, Francis Bacon, and Their Furies

Abstract

This article traces the relationship between the Furies as depicted in T.S. Eliot’s The Family Reunion (1939) and the work of painter Francis Bacon. Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) – a triptych depicting three grotesque amorphous creatures, which he identified with the Furies – was directly inspired by The Family Reunion , which in turn draws on Aeschylus’ The Eumenides . Eliot’s play not only generated a creative response by Bacon that inaugurated his characteristic style; crucially, it also led him to the Oresteia as a source of inspiration that would be pivotal for his later career. In the play, Eliot’s goddesses of retribution pursue Harry, who is said to have perpetuated a family curse by murdering his wife. The integration of the Furies into a modern play with a Christian background and their visual representation on stage are central challenges of The Family Reunion , as Eliot acknowledged. Bacon represented the Furies as monsters in Three Studies , a triptych that evokes Christian iconography linked to mythology. There are, however, essential differences between Eliot’s and Bacon’s approaches. In The Family Reunion , the Furies become salvific “bright angels” offering Harry an escape from his private hell, whereas in Bacon’s representations, they remain monsters or birds of ill omen that never bring hope. Eliot eventually came to consider his Furies a dramatic failure, recommending they be invisible on stage and subsequently adhering to realism in his drama; for Bacon, the Furies became recurrent images of horror and guilt, haunting but inspirational.