Although 'The Family Reunion' has characters of a sort, but they do not appear to be very well drawn. During the play, Eliot uses a lot of symbolism, and portrays the characters to be representative of certain types of people, rather than being in-depth individuals. During this essay, I will examine why this is so, and the reasons that Eliot may have chosen to depict his characters in this way. Amy is the widow of …showed first 75 words of 1540 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1540 total…levels, from confused mixtures of the literal and the symbolic." (p 212, Smith, G), which Eliot himself admitted in later years. Whilst all of the characters seem realistic in part, few of them are depicted as wholly rounded people. It appears that this serves a purpose of sorts, as the characters contrast well against one another, but it is also contributes to causing difficulties for the audience (or the reader) to believe they are real people.