In the year 1939, William Butler Yeats penned Purgatory (Viana, Maria Rita Drumond). The short play focuses on an Old Man, who returns to his ancestral home in the hope of eradicating the sins that he sees surrounding him, though his logic is twisted (Viana, Maria Rita Drumond). It is this deranged logic that prompts him to murder his father and son in retribution for their sins. The Old Man’s mother is described by him as an apparition stuck in limbo, forced to relive the night of her son’s conception because of her remorse. The concept of evil in conjunction with religion is what William Butler Yeats is exploring with this play (Viana, Maria Rita Drumond). The crime of homicide against an ascendant and descendant, as well as the Old Man’s
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He says so before stabbing the Boy: “That beast there would know nothing being nothing. If I should kill a man under the window, he would not even turn his head” (Yeats, William Butler lines 211-213). He then proceeds to address the air by stating: “Study that tree. It stands there like a purified soul, all cold, sweet, glistening light” (Yeats, William Butler lines 223-225). The Old Man opens with “Study that tree” the same way he told the Boy to “Study that house” at the beginning. He had commented on the tree in line 20, “I saw it a year ago stripped bare as now, I saw it fifty years ago before the thunder-bolt had riven it, green leaves, ripe leaves, leaves thick as butter, fat, greasy life” (Yeats, William Butler lines 20-24). Here both the tree and the house are symbolic, physical representations of the product of the Old Man’s father’s sins. By using the word ‘purified,’ Yeats is connecting the Boy’s death to the damaged property and stating that his death purified the evil left behind. The point of bringing the Boy to his ancestral home and killing him was atonement. It was a necessary death to purify the land tainted by the Old Man’s father and prevent the cycle of their destructive bloodline from continuing. It was also meant to set his mother free from her remorse and, consequently, Purgatory. Unfortunately, it does not free his mother from Purgatory, as the Old Man laments “twice a murderer and all for nothing” (Yeats, William Butler line
He says so before stabbing the Boy: “That beast there would know nothing being nothing. If I should kill a man under the window, he would not even turn his head” (Yeats, William Butler lines 211-213). He then proceeds to address the air by stating: “Study that tree. It stands there like a purified soul, all cold, sweet, glistening light” (Yeats, William Butler lines 223-225). The Old Man opens with “Study that tree” the same way he told the Boy to “Study that house” at the beginning. He had commented on the tree in line 20, “I saw it a year ago stripped bare as now, I saw it fifty years ago before the thunder-bolt had riven it, green leaves, ripe leaves, leaves thick as butter, fat, greasy life” (Yeats, William Butler lines 20-24). Here both the tree and the house are symbolic, physical representations of the product of the Old Man’s father’s sins. By using the word ‘purified,’ Yeats is connecting the Boy’s death to the damaged property and stating that his death purified the evil left behind. The point of bringing the Boy to his ancestral home and killing him was atonement. It was a necessary death to purify the land tainted by the Old Man’s father and prevent the cycle of their destructive bloodline from continuing. It was also meant to set his mother free from her remorse and, consequently, Purgatory. Unfortunately, it does not free his mother from Purgatory, as the Old Man laments “twice a murderer and all for nothing” (Yeats, William Butler line