The End of Villette, Again (20 June 2025)

“At the deepest, most archaic level of Brontë’s fiction resides the vision of an idealized Romantic love.  It controls her earliest work as it informs her last. Although its manifestation steadily alters, it never loses its importance, even in the most placid characters, it sends out tremors from below.” (66)

- Karen Chase  Eros and Psyche: The Representation of Personality in Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens and George Elliot (Routledge, 1984)

 It has been just over a year since I finished reading Villette for the first time, and I am still engaged with the text and with Lucy Snowe; coming to appreciate her state-of-soul as well as her life-situation at the end-point of her narrative.  Hence this third blog.[1]  My journey has brought me from a deep concern for her at the end of my first read; having felt that she was likely still in a state of unresolved trauma with regard to those unnarrated 8 years of her life between the early chapters in Bretton and her engagement as companion to Miss Marchmont—toward a more positive consideration of her state at the end of her story.

This change was first prompted by my reading Barry Quales’ The Secular Pilgrimage of Victorian Fiction: The Novel as Book of Life (Cambridge University Press, 1982), in which the author suggested that there is evidence in the text that Lucy may have achieved a degree of self-realization, and might even have been ‘happy’ by the end of her tale.  I had to ask: Had she navigated through life and come to a place where she is herself; alone, yes, but not un-self-realized?  Quales said:

“That Brontë’s heroines … achieve a certain happiness attests to her romance impulse: that her final heroine, Lucy Snowe, can achieve that happiness – “Freedom and Renovation” – only in exile and alone attests to Brontë’s continually darkening sense of the alienating nature of English life.” (50)

Quales encouraged me to consider that her being alone at the end of her narrative – having rejected John Graham Bretton and lost M Paul Emmanuel – was not necessarily a negative state.  I certainly don’t think that myself; as I value solitude as much as community, relationship with others as much as independence.  What his analysis prompted me to consider, however, was that Lucy underwent a transformation through the course of her story, both in the living of it and in the telling of it – and that her state-of-soul by the end is not as sad and unfortunate as I first understood it to be?

This was reinforced and given heft through my more recent read of Karen Chase’s engaging exploration of the role of eros and psyche in the novel.  She has pointed me to specific texts providing evidence of another way of looking at Lucy Snowe at the time when she was writing her story.  For Chase, Lucy is a person struggling between independence and romance; a dialectical tension similar to Quales’ theme of “Freedom and Renovation.”  Chase first made me take notice of Lucy’s avowal of “success;” so plain-stated that I shouldn’t have neglected to take it into account on my first read.  She says—

“The secret of my success did not lie so much in myself, in any endowment, any power of mine, as in a new state of circumstances, a wonderfully changed life, a relieved heart.  The spring which moved my energies lay far away beyond seas, in an Indian isle.” (Ch XLII ¶ 5)

She asserts her success while attributing it to forces beyond her own will; something that is not as often acknowledged as it perhaps should be—the interplay of our own will and desires with those of others.  New circumstances can ofttimes open a person to new life-possibilities.  For Lucy, it is the friendship that developed between her and M Paul Emmanuel and then his gifting her the little house in which she was able to start a school of her own; something that she had been dreaming of doing as her life at the pensionnat unfolded—this gift being an impetus for change and growth.

Chase then pointed me to Lucy’s next avowal; another one that I had perhaps not given as much attention to as it deserved!  Lucy says:

“Do not think that this genial flame sustained itself, or lived wholly on a bequeathed hope or a parting promise. A generous provider supplied bounteous fuel.” (Ch XLII, ¶ 6)

Lucy’s assertion of herself as having or being a “genial flame” is once again humbly attributed to an external catalyst; just as was her success.  It was not self-sustaining.  She did not live for years after M Paul’s departure by hope alone, nor did she sustain herself solely on his “parting promise” of return.  The fuel that sustains her is none other than M Paul Emmanuel’s friendship and generosity.

I have been grappling, as a reader, with accepting this evidence as a true description of Lucy’s state-of-soul at the time she is finishing her narrative.  I have come to a confluence of flow in this regard; it may be part of our understanding of Lucy Snowe, at least, but I would urge that it is not the whole picture.   To rune this out, I began to think about Lucy’s relationships with John Graham Bretton and M Paul Emmauel.  These are the two men in her life in Villette, and the way they respond to her, treat and understand her gives heft to the claim that Lucy sees M Paul as the sustaining force behind her “genial flame” and “success.”

There are several scenes and themes in the narrative through which John and M Paul are being implicitly compared; as persons in themselves as well as in their relation to Lucy.   I want to focus on just one of these themes here; how they each react to Lucy’s confession of having seen the Nun.  There is a clear difference in their reaction, as well as in their approach to the confession and to Lucy herself as the one claiming to have had this unusual, out-of-the-ordinary experience.

Lucy’s first encounter with the Nun occurs in the garret of the school in Chapter XXII, “The Letter” – after which John queries Lucy as to what she has seen, teasing her that if she did not tell him, he would never write her another letter. (¶ 43).  (Note that Lucy was up there reading John’s first letter for the first time!)  Despite this meanness, Lucy submits, as she wants – needs – to share with someone what happened up in the garret.  She tells him what she saw.  And what is his reaction?  To write it off, saying that what she really needs is to seek to be happy.  He says: “Happiness is the cure—a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both.”  (¶ 65)  “This is all a matter of the nerves,” he had said even before she described the apparition of the Nun (¶52). 

Once he heard her story he pronounced, “I think it a case of spectral illusion: I fear,  following on and resulting from long-continued mental conflict." (¶ 63).  Dr John here reduces Lucy to the level of one of his patients.

After his ‘diagnosis,’ Lucy is left alone in her musings as to what happened in the attic.  He has planted doubts in her mind as to what she experienced, leading her to question her own mental health.  Compare this with her discussion with M Paul in the Forbidden Alley in the Garden in Chapter XXXI, “The Dryad,” in which the Nun – its nature and intent – is brought up in a conversation in which M Paul’s care and concern for Lucy has been confessed and made manifest in an act of kindness!

Just before this scene, Lucy had been asleep at a desk in one of the classrooms, and upon waking found herself shawled and her head resting on another shawl (¶ 6).  She wonders who could have done this; who had had enough care for her to keep her comfortable and free from getting chilled as she slept?  Madame Beck seemed the best candidate, but later, when strolling out into the Garden in the moonlight, she discovers the actual perpetrator of the caring act!

She gravitates, as usual, to the Forbidden Alley – her favorite haunt of solitude – which she has not visited since she buried John’s letters in what I call a ‘jar of confinement.’[2]  There Lucy reflects on that ‘epistolary’ burial, which is right below her feet at the foot of the Methuselah Tree, interred just above what is said to be the resting place of the ‘nun buried alive’ in “centuries past” for some misconduct against the rules of her order.

It is interesting that Lucy is here reflecting on her friendship with John, allowing herself to doubt, for a few moments, whether she should have so severed her heart from her hopes regarding John as to have buried his letters, saying:

“I recalled Dr. John; my warm affection for him; my faith in his excellence; my delight in his grace. What was become of that curious one-sided friendship which was half marble and half life; only on one hand truth, and on the other perhaps a jest?” (¶14)

 _but, sobering, realizes that her hopes would never have come to pass.  She sees that it was “one-sided” as well as stone-like and possibly a joke!  She then says, finally, a closing ‘reply’ to John, spoken to him though he is not present, “Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful; but you are not mine. Good-night, and God bless you!” (¶ 17)

This “good night” is echoed by another voice and, turning, Lucy finds M Paul standing quite near her in the fading evening light.  As they begin to talk, he admits that he was the one who shawled her in the classroom against the chillness of the evening, after which a very honest conversation unfolds, approaching a threshold of depth that will continue to be explored as their story unfolds through the rest of the novel.  They discuss his modesty and how he is not impervious to embarrassment; which impresses Lucy, who then feels towards him “a sincerity of esteem which made my heart ache.” (¶ 45).

M Paul then tells her how he keeps his eye on the Garden from a window high up in the boys’ colleges, and how he has long been aware of Lucy’s attraction to the Forbidden Alley; that he has “noticed her taste for seclusion, watched her well, long before” they had come to be on “speaking terms.” (¶ 47).  While Lucy criticizes M Paul for his surveillance, she recognizes the concern for herself and the well-being of the students at the school that it represents.  She suggests that were it anyone else surveilling the Garden from a high window, she might have more qualms; indicating that she already at this point recognizes M Paul’s good intentions in what he does—even if the acting-out of those intentions raises concerns.

M Paul then lets her know that Madame Beck often comes into the Garden while Lucy is secluded in the Forbidden Alley, and espies her, watching what is going on.  The surveillance of M Paul from his window is contrasted with the spying eyes of Madame Beck, for he lets Lucy know this as a warning for her to be on her guard.  While Madame Beck’s surveillance of the students and staff in general can, on the one hand, be considered done for the welfare of those spied upon, like M Paul, with regard to Lucy, however, Madame Beck’s surveillance has more complicated motives!  This information, shared with Lucy, is one more indication of his care and concern for her.  While M Paul sees himself as a benevolent surveillant, he implies that Madame Beck may have less ‘honorable’ motives.

Going deeper into the connection emerging between them, M Paul queries her: “do you recollect my once coming silently and offering you a little knot of white violets when we were strangers?” To which she replies: “I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still.” (¶ 48).  This happened before they had begun to be(come) friends, and for that reason her preservation of the proffered violets carries a load of significance!  These violets from M Paul were in Lucy’s drawer where she kept her valuables; they were there when she stowed John’s letters away in that same drawer for safe keeping.  Imagine_ the scent of the violets from M Paul adding their fragrance to John’s letters?  This reminder of the violets certainly speaks to an initial opening toward their eventual relationship sometime early in Lucy’s residence at the pensionnat!

The discussion then moves toward a revelation between them of something they have both seen in the Garden.  At first M Paul is fishing; he wants to discover if what he suspects about Lucy may be true.  When Lucy queries what he means, sensing that she might know but being unwilling to divulge having seen the Nun – still troubled by John’s dismissive reaction to her experience – he confesses “I have seen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me watch all night for a solution, and I have not yet found it.” (¶67).  In preparation for further revelation, he queries her whether or not Protestants believe in the supernatural, and whether she is superstitious.  After some back and forth between them in relation to these religious questions, M Paul confesses:

“Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this house by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day.  I have indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventual weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to any other living being.  A nun!”  (¶ 83)

 To which Lucy replies – I always sense when I read it – with a liberated feeling of relief:

 “Monsieur, I, too, have seen it.” (¶ 84)

 This is a significant moment in the story, as in it, Lucy begins to recognize in M Paul a kindred spirit.  While his attitudes towards her are often patronizing and even overbearing, he struggles, through the course of the novel, to achieve a better understanding of Lucy, until his eventual profession that “I know you, Lucy Snowe,” rings truer.

M Paul is open to extra-ordinary experience, and in his sharing with Lucy that he has also seen the Nun – whatever and whomever it may be – he does not reduce her to a subordinate position in regard to himself.  They seem to me more like equals in this exchange; the acceptance of one another’s equality being a necessary basis of true friendship – each acknowledging an experience the other has had, and neither rationalizing the other person’s experience away.  Whereas John ‘stood above’ Lucy in his evaluation of her experience of the Nun, M Paul is confessing to Lucy that he has seen a ‘something’ and is hoping Lucy might accept his acknowledgment of it.  She does.

M Paul’s confession frees Lucy from the doubts she has had as to the reality of what she has actually seen; the Nun! – regardless of what or who the Nun may be.  This shared avowal of having seen a ‘something’ in the Garden is then confirmed at the experiential level by another ‘apparition’ of the Nun, right after their mutual confession!  They both see her!

His confession and then the strange experience that they share reveals to Lucy that in M Paul she has found someone who, while oft too-assuredly asserting that he does in fact ‘know her,’ she has something in common with; their state-of-soul and their bearing toward the world are in some sense in alignment, though they are different persons from differing backgrounds.  These differences – even the religious ones – they eventually come to accept and affirm in their equality as true friends.

There are other moments in the narrative when M Paul is shown to be a better friend to Lucy than John Graham Bretton ever was or could be.  While her feelings for John are never completely assuaged (she admits at one point that she dug-up the letters and re-read them later in her life) by this point in the novel she clearly realizes that he is not ‘for her,’ nor her ‘for him.’  Their relationship would have perhaps remained ‘superficial’ or at least ‘formal,’ whereas Lucy desires depth; depth of feeling and passionate, significant experiences.  I was as stunned as she was, I think, when John confessed to her that, had she been a boy back in Bretton, instea of a girl, they should have been ‘great friends!’[3]  _i.e., ‘just friends.’

By counterpoint, her feelings for M Paul Emmanuel are deepening as they journey through the novel together until their love becomes manifest and true friendship is avowed.  He mentors her, but allows her to maintain her independence.  She learns from him without being reduced to being ‘just a student.’  She stands up to him; she is free to criticize him and the way he treats her—helping to free him from certain cultural and personal biases he has had toward her.  They are friends sharing together in an experience of learning and growing in relationship with each other.

How does this analysis inform for me the question as to Lucy’s state-of-soul at the end of the novel?  How is she faring?  How does she stand in relation to her life and her experiences; to John and M Paul especially?  Is she (1) successful and contented, or (2) succeeding in the world, as a teacher, yet still not fully resolved with regard to her losses; first that of her family and second, the loss of M Paul?

On the one hand, she professes her success and attributes it to M Paul’s influence, his gift of the school, and his mentoring of her before he left on his voyage.  She is a “genial flame,” “genial” being an adjective related to cheerfulness, cordiality, being warm and amiable, friendly and even affable.  On the other hand, we have the three storms she passes through; the first storm being a metaphor for the tragedy of circumstances she underwent during that unnarrated 8-year period between chapter III and chapter IV. Though no actual external ‘storm’ occurred, she uses the metaphor of “storm” to express – without explaining the particulars – how her life became a “shipwreck.”  The second “storm” – both an actual and an existential one – brought about her collapse on the steps of the Beguine Church (Chapter XV, “The Long Vacation” ¶’s 54-55); the description of the storm being resonant with that of a storm at sea; herself once again being the ship that is being wrecked.  She sank, but then she rose again.  The third storm is that which took M Paul.  He died in what was probably a massive hurricane on the Atlantic Ocean.  What kind of storm did that cause in Lucy’s soul?  The reader is not told.

Though the last two storms are actual meteorological events, one can easily imagine, as the reader, what the emotional and psychological effect of those storms might have been upon her.  Of the second storm we have an account, as poignant as brief.  When she awakes afterwards, she finds herself in a ‘replica’ of the Bretton house she visited as a girl, and muses whether or not she is dreaming or dead and passed over into an Otherworld.  Much to her surprise, she finds herself in the company of Mrs Bretton, and is soon reunited with John and Paulina.  This fosters a noticeable change in Lucy’s life; she grows and matures through the experience.  How does she respond to the third storm and the loss of M Paul?  As with the first “storm,” she does not say.  In fact, she prevaricates and does not describe the actual events which took place around that loss in any more than a summary way.  It takes less than a page to share with us the loss of M Paul Emmanuel!

Only two paragraphs describe the assumed shipwreck at sea in which M Paul was lost.  I still sense – as I did on my first read – that her trauma over the loss of M Paul may be manifest in the disruption of her narrative at that point, when she suddenly leaves off a description of the disaster and says:

“Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding life.” (Chapter XLII, ¶ 17)

Only two lines follow this disruption, relating the long and happy lives of Madame Beck, Madame Walravens and Père Silas.  As such, the paragraph above first seemed to me like an evasion of a narrative that could have been given; and perhaps suggests a reluctance – even an inability – even after a number of years (untallied in the narrative itself) to face or reconcile herself with what happened.  Or is it simply that she no longer has any need – psychological or emotional – to go over the story of her loss of M Paul, once more, now for her readers?

So what do I now understand about Lucy at the end of her story?

Is she a success and a happy, congenial, etc., person, living the life of a teacher in her own school, thanks to the generosity of M Paul?  Does that, or could that possibly, sum her up?  Or is this avowal of success a stance – a plausibly necessary one – by and in which she persists in her career over the course of however many years it has been since M Paul’s death, making the most of what she has and trying not to allow the storms that have hit her wreck her ship ultimately?

I am moved by all of these reflections toward the second possibility.  I think she had, by the end, steeled herself and lived her life as well as she could, as a reasonably independent woman, given what she has been through, and in that way is a ‘success,’ though not in the superficial sense in which that term is usually bandied about.  She has weathered the storms and come through still being functional and able to live as fully as any mortal can in the circumstances in which they find themselves, having made the choices they have made and weathered the consequences resulting from those choices.  In Lucy’s case, much of what she has weathered was not a direct result of her choices, but indirectly flows from choices arising through and after what has happened to her.  She is a survivor.

Seen in this second sense, I have a great respect for Lucy Snowe, and while I am still trying to understand – much less comprehend – her pilgrim-like journey through the story on many levels; through the various experiences she has had and how she responded to them—and while I don’t think it probable that I will ever ‘understand’ her in any full psychological sense – can anyone really be so understood? (I don’t think so!) – I resonate with her story and will no doubt read this novel again (and again) in the years to come.

The understanding at which I have now arrived regarding Lucy Snowe allows a blending of my initial reaction to the ending with the subsequent emendations – via reading Quales and Chase – showing that there was indeed a positive aspect to it.  After all of my reflection on the end of Villette, I am also encouraged to allow this ending to stand as ambiguous; it is ultimately left to us as readers of her story to try and understand her state-of-soul in the later years of her life, when she is a ‘gray-haired old woman.’

To those who have read the novel, would you agree at all with this analysis and the stance I have come to as to Lucy’s state-of-soul at the end of the novel?   I would be curious to know.

- Montague Whitsel 

 

Finis

 

[1] “Jane, Shirley & Lucy Snowe” (28 August 2024) and then “The End of Villette – Reconsidered” (17 October 2024)

[2] “Jar of Confinement” – in Chapter XXVI “A Burial” Lucy engages in what seems to me like an old magical ritual I am familiar with from occult literature, the purpose of which is the containing and/or preserving of some object.  Lucy’s going to an old “Broker’s Shoppe,” whereat she found a jar in amongst “ancient” things and then the way in which she treated it (¶’s 23-27), sealing John’s letters within it and then burying it, reminds me very much of this old occult ritual.  That she buries the jar beneath the old, mysterious Methuselah tree – beneath which a nun was said to have been buried alive – connects the ritual with the protective forces of the Underworld.

[3] In Chapter XXVII The Hotel Crecy, John says: “I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl—my mother’s god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends: our opinions would have melted into each other.”  -- which stings Lucy’s conscience and her understanding of her relationship with John.

Harvey – a Fairy Story (13 May 25; FM)

“Faery stories are based on hope, not despair, and however terrifying the adventures while they are occurring, they always culminate in the happy ending.” (21)

 -       Verlyn Fleger Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World (2002, revised edition)

“I was raised on Irish folk tales told to me by my uncles. I had four bachelor uncles. I think that’s always had an impact on my work.  Harvey the pooka, and the changeling in Mrs. McThing… I have to say, I’m very grateful for that heritage.”

- Mary Chase, Pulitzer prize winning writer of the original play[1]

 “Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally won out over it.”                                             

- Elwood P. Dowd, in Harvey (1950)

           I haven’t seen Harvey for probably 40 years, and I had forgotten much about it except that it features a man (played by Jimmy Stewart) who has a big white rabbit friend; an invisible big white rabbit—as I remembered.  Having been gifted a copy of the DVD at Yule, I watched the movie last month, on Eostre (which was, I thought, way too appropriate),[2] and was struck by its being a full-blown fairy-story! 

Of course, you might say, it’s got a pookah in it; a pookah being an old fairy character from Irish mythology—so how could it not be a fairy story?  True.  But what I realized, this time, is how many fairy themes are actually woven into the tale.  How it deals with Faërie[3] and people touched by it; and how, when Faërie crosses-over into our daily lives; so constricted by the routinized normal—it upsets conventions while opening eyes and hearts to Other-Reality.

So what makes Harvey a true fairy story, then?

First, on the level of the story as a whole, it has both – to use Tolkien’s terms –dyscatastrophe and eucatastrophe.  For most of the film, Elwood (Jimmy Stewart’s character) is in danger of being committed to a sanitarium.  Why?  Because he is considered ‘insane.’  Why?  Because he breaks the strictures of normalcy by talking to an invisible friend, Harvey by name – who is described by Elwood as a six-foot-three-and-a-half-inch tall humanoid rabbit.  (Elwood is always very specific about that height!).[4]  This threat to Elwood’s freedom fits the theme of dyscatastrophe; i.e., the unavoidable tragic end; an inescapable fate—the destructive end that cannot be averted.  While it happens on a personal level; not being world-threatening as it in in The Lord of the Rings, for instance – it portends a tragic turn for the character; an end to his life as a free person.[5]  It is unlikely to be averted, though in the end, it is; that being the eucatastrophe—i.e., an unexpected and unlikely turn of fate for the better.

As a viewer, I was led to think at the beginning of the film that Elwood Dowd is simply ‘delusional,’ ‘hallucinating’ his imaginary friend, and while that may be ‘abnormal,’ Elwood is a decent person with only good intentions towards others.  He is ‘harmless,’ except that he doesn’t quite live in the ‘real’ world shared by ‘the rest of us.’  Elwood and Harvey go about town together, visiting bars, talking with people and occasionally inviting them to dinner at his house.  This begins in the very first scene, wherein Elwood is seen leaving to go on one of his ambles.  He comes to the gate, and here we see the first intimation of his invisible friend, Elwood saying to him, “After you,” politely leaving the unseen person go ahead of him through the gate.  Elwood is, in addition to many other virtues, always genuinely polite.

Elwood meets a postman at the gate and, after a few polite words, offers the man his ‘card.’  Though it is refused, this is something else that Elwood frequently does; the gesture being often accompanied by an invitation to come to dinner at the Dowd house.  Most of these invitees are more or less strangers to Elwood and, no doubt, his sister and niece.  This offer is first taken up by a man at Charlie’s – a bar Elwood oft visits – whom he sees and, recognizing him, goes over to the booth where the man is sitting, there considerately inquiring how he is doing.  He obviously knows him from previous acquaintance.  We find out that he has recently been released from prison, for some undisclosed crime, but this doesn’t put Elwood off.  He continues to engage the man compassionately; genuinely glad to see him back at Charlie’s and, giving him his card, invites him to come to dinner.  The man graciously accepts.

A generous thing to do; inviting strangers to dinner—and in the context of the ‘invisible friend’ the gesture takes on ‘something more.’  This kind of generosity and welcoming to others is often associated in the lore with people who are fairy-touched; those who have come into contact with the fairyfolk and their world in some way or other—and who are thereby slipping, slightly, out-of-touch with the regular ‘real’ world; the conventions of which so often limit our sense of connection with others—especially, unfortunately, those who are not ‘like’ us.  [Would that we could all slip out-of-touch with what is considered ‘real’ more often, if it would mean becoming more compassionate, generous and hospitable!]  While Elwood is still partially in the ‘real’ world, he later avows to Dr Sanderson and the nurse, Miss Kelly, that he has “won out” over reality.

His having “won out” over reality may be what – on one level – is causing his sister Vita Louise – and her daughter – Myrtle Mae – to be so uncomfortable.  As the scene changes to what’s going on in the Dowd house, Veta Louisa exclaims: “It is a wonderful feeling to have your relatives out of the house before the company comes.”  A Miss Johnson – who had been hired for the day; to help serve at a Society Meeting – is then seen summarily quitting, saying she had encountered Elwood before he left, and cannot abide him!  The ‘strangeness’ of her encounter with Ellwood has threatened to open-up the horizons of her normal ordinary world, and she flees before it has a chance to take effect.  After she leaves, Myrtle Mae exclaims in frustration that as people are ‘run down by trucks every day,’ why can’t Elwood be so disposed of!?

Vita Louise and Myrtle Mae are obviously not coping with Elwood’s ‘delusion,’ in part because it has alienated them from normal society relations.  No one comes to see them anymore.  The Society Meeting for which they are preparing is an attempt to ‘get back in the game’ of socializing.  _While Elwood is out!   Vita Louise is hoping that the meeting will begin to restore their reputation and possibly lead to Myrtle Mae finding a suitable husband.  If only Elwood does not come back!  Which he does, of course_ disrupting the gathering and introducing a couple of the ladies to Harvey_ which prompts everyone to leave the Dowd house!  Veta and Myrtle Mae are so fed-up with Elwood’s mental illness that they are ready to ‘put him away’ – which they do try and do in the second act.

I felt for Elwood immediately, as this scene exemplifies how people living in an unquestioned and narrow-horizoned ‘normal’ are so often unable to handle anything that threatens their familiarity with ‘the way things should be’ and rousts them into aversion and fear, if not worse.  At this point, however, I wasn’t expecting anything other than the story and plight of a kind man with an active and very vivid Creative Imagination.  I was assuming the six-foot rabbit (“excuse me,” Elwood would break-in, “six-foot-three-and-a-half inch”) with whom he appears to converse and walk about town with to simply be an illusion; a projected presencing of an imaginative companion!  I thought of Elwood as someone who had ‘gone down the rabbit hole’ (oh dear_ did I really write that?).  However, very soon things began to happen that suggested – and later proved – another reason for the uneasiness of people around Elwood and Harvey.

Elwood’s sister and her niece are distraught.  After all, no one really wants to take care of a mentally-ill person, do they?  (_I wish it were not so.)  And of course, there is an assumption riding just below the literal narrative level – that ‘they’ are probably going to kill everyone, right?  Animosity toward the mentally ill is evinced by several characters, from Miss Johnson to the taxi driver who drives Elwood to the Chumley Rest Home to Wilson; the attendant at the rest home[6]—the assumption being, Elwood is obviously dangerous and violent to the point of murder_ beneath – perhaps because of – his calm, ‘controlled’ exterior!  In general, in this story, ‘polite society’ (which is often only polite towards its own kind) has been offended; the unquestioned horizons of their normalcy having been challenged—'who can deal with it,’ the reactions of those at the Society Meeting and the housekeeper seem to be implying by their behavior (rather loudly).

This leads into the first moment of fairy experience that sign-post the story as a true fairy story!  It is said that when fairyfolk are around, that there is a ‘strangeness’ in the air that people who are not fairy-touched can and do sometimes ‘sense,’ though they are not quite able to grasp what its cause might be, much less understand why they may feel ‘unalone,’ perhaps, or just ‘uneasy’ – in the presence of a fairy or one who is fairy-touched.

Elwood persistently shows that he has slipped-the-noose of social conventions; which is also a common theme in fairy stories; those who have met fairies or even gone to the fairyworld often are only partially ‘here’ afterwards; this being a kind of liberation.  He is acting out of a genuine compassion for other people, regardless of who they are or where they have come from_ or even what they have been or done.  This speaks to the freedom that sometimes comes with being fairy-touched or even visiting with fairies.  It gets expressed as tolerance and open-hearted, open-minded acceptance of others.  He interacts with these people, and his dealings with them throughout the story show him to be a man concerned with their well-being.  His card – which he offers to a  number of the people he meets – implies this openness to their being who they are.  He wants to have dinner with them.

At the beginning of the film the viewer might think that Elwood is actually delusional, as I did, though in his case – as with Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34^th Street” – there is no indication   that he is violent or would hurt anyone.  As the psychiatrist Dr Pierce from Brooks Memorial Home, where Kris lives in that story, says, even if Kris is delusional, he has a delusion for doing good, and, for that reason, need not be institutionalized.  Here, in Harvey – as in Miracle on 34^th Street – it is the people around Elwood that I found most in need of help.

The attempt to have Elwood committed is comically played out when Dr Sanderson mistakes Veta Louise – Elwood’s sister – for the person who is being committed to the sanitarium!  This happens during her interview with Sanderson, when she admits:

“Doctor, I’m going to tell you something I have never told anyone else in the world before, not even Myrtle Mae, every once in a while I see this big White Rabbit myself.   … he’s every bit as big as Elwood says he is.” 

Veta Louise confessing to the doctor, in her exasperation, that she has sometimes ‘seen’ Harvey certainly may have a this-worldly, naturalistic explanation.  It can be understood as someone involuntarily participating in the delusion of another; very understandable, as Veta Louise loves and lives with Elwood and his ‘imaginary’ friend.  Yet, as this is a true fairy story, this is the first fairy moment; a glimmer of the presence and effect of Faërie on the characters.  More such moments are to follow_ and once I heard this, I had to think back through the earlier scenes to see if there were any other such indications!

Veta Louise’s confession leads to her being committed, and to Elwood being brought down and released.  Shortly after Elwood leaves the Sanitarium on his own recognizance, he is picking flowers when Mrs Chumley – the head psychiatrist’s wife – drives by, coming to rendezvous with her husband as, she says, they are going to a cocktail party.  She stops to speak with him as he is in a bed of her best Dahlias; flowers that in folklore represent strength and resilience in dangerous or difficult situations.  This flower’s presence in the story is symbolically significant, as Elwood is in a dangerous situation; though he doesn’t really reckon it—being only partially in ‘this world.’  The Dahlia is also associated with professions of love, so later, when he picks one and gives it to Nurse Kelly, it clearly symbolizes his pleasant affection toward her, which she experiences as affirming.

Elwood tells Mrs Crumley that he is looking for a friend of his named Harvey.  Continuing to be polite toward Elwood, perhaps thinking he is an inmate at the sanitarium, she then asks how to recognize Harvey if she sees him, so she can direct him to where Elwood is waiting for him.  A revelatory exchange ensues:

Ellwood: “You can’t miss him, Mrs Chumley, he’s a pookah.”

Mrs Chumley: “A pookah; is that something new?”

Elwood: “No, as I understand it, that’s something very old.  …  But Harvey’s not only a pookah, he’s my best friend.” 

After exchanging a few pleasantries with Elwood; not quite knowing what to make of him—Mrs Chumley has her driver take her on up to the sanitarium.  I would say that her questioning state is a first step toward a possible openness to the fairy-realm?

As Elwood leaves the sanitarium grounds, he has another affirming conversation; this time with the gatekeeper – Mr. Herman Shimelplatzer – in which he compliments the old man on his ingenuity in creating the mechanism for opening and closing the gate.  Showing appreciation to others for their achievements is another aspect of Elwood’s good nature; and is applaudable whether one is fairy-touched or not.  [Would that many more people might embody this virtuous way of engaging with others.]  Elwood then gives Mr. Shimelplatzer his card and invites him to dinner the next night.  He will be at least the second attendee along with the ex-con Ellwood met at Charlie’s!  This dinner is shaping up into a very interesting event, don’t you think?

Inside the rest home, having resolved the confusion of who is being committed and who isn’t, Veta Louise is released.  Back at the Dowd house judge Gaffney – a friend of the family as well as their lawyer – shows up saying he’s had a wild call from Veta Louise and wants Myrtle Mae to help him figure out what it’s all about.  Myrtle Mae starts to make a phone call to the sanitarium, at which point another significant exchange ensues:

 Judge Gaffney: “You know, I feel bad having Elwood locked up.  I always loved that boy, he could have done anything, been anything, made a place for himself in the community.”

Myrtle Mae: “And all he did was get a big rabbit!!”
Judge Gaffney: “I know, he’s had that rabbit up in my office many a time.”
[Myrtle Mae gives him an incredulous look.]
Judge Gaffney: “I’m old but I don’t miss much.”

What does his response mean?  I take it as another indication of someone who perhaps at least senses, if not ‘sees,’ the pookah.  It is a third instance of what I will call a fairy moment in the film; evidence of the realm of Faërie having slightly skewed, perhaps, the judge’s normal, everyday world.  The judge does not say some version of ‘Elwood comes to my office acting like he’s in the company of that imaginary rabbit.’  Rather, he says Elwood “has brought” Harvey to his office on some number of occasions.  This may be the second instance of someone – other than Elwood – having some kind of experience of the pookah’s presence; the first being Veta Louise’s admission that she has on occasion seen Harvey herself. 

Once this happened, I had to think back to the bar, where the bartender – Mr Cracker – (interesting name!) seemed to have no qualm about setting up a drink for his invisible patron.  He even asks Elwood ‘how he is,’ referring to Harvey, and while this could be understood, and no doubt is, at that point in the story, as a kind-hearted indulgence toward another man’s delusion, once the reality of the pookah begins to be revealed, perhaps he, too, does ‘sense’ something; being aware of that fairy ‘strangeness’ surrounding Elwood?

Significant fairy moments then happen out at Chumley’s Rest Home once they realize it was Elwood who was supposed to be committed.  The moments in this scene begin as Dr Chumley emerges from his office wearing a hat which he then recognizes is not his.  It has two holes in the top that only prompts the doctor to suggest that its some ‘new fashion.’  The holes, however, could well be for rabbit ears!  “Who’s hat is this?” He demands to know.  This is a fairy moment.  Something strange; not simply of mistakenly picking up someone else’s hat—but one with odd, suggestive holes in it!  The question engaged me, sending me back to see the hat Elwood was wearing when he arrived at the sanitarium, and it is clearly a different hat; you can see it in the scenes when he is in the taxi after his sister goes in to commit him, and also in the scene later when he is speaking with Mrs Chumley.  It definitely does not have two holes in it!  Could it have been Harvey’s hat?  If so, this is also the first physical manifestation of Faërie in the story!  An invisible pookah leaves behind a physical, quite visible hat tailored specifically for him!   Was it for Dr Chumley to find?  And where was it?  In the doctor’s office?  _If so, perhaps Harvey has already begun to pay attention to Dr Chumley; a theme that, if so, is proleptic, playing out at the end of the story.

Nurse Kelly gets Dr Chumley’s hat for him.  When she returns, he puts it on, but continues to hold the strange hat in his hands for much of the rest of the scene!  When Dr Chumley then mentions to Dr Sanderson the ‘unfortunate case’ of the morning, he is told it is ‘resolved.’  Dr Chumley, referring to the ‘delusion’ of the patient, however, mentions the name ‘Harvey.’   At this, Mrs Chumley tries and break in to the conversation, which she finally does, telling her husband that she had met Ellwood, who was looking for a friend of his named “Harvey;” and that “he said his friend was a pookah.”

Standing there with his fingers sticking out through the two holes in the hat-that-isn’t-his, Dr Chumley accuses Dr Sanderson of compounding his earlier error, saying:

"So you gave him a pass, doctor Sanderson?  Perhaps they neglected to tell you at medical school that a rabbit has long pointed ears.  You’ve allowed a psychotic man to walk out of here and roam around with an overgrown white rabbit.”

Like Judge Gaffney’s referring to Elwood bringing Harvey to his office, the way Dr Chumley phrases his accusation here could indicate also that there is a white rabbit? Thus, making this another fairy moment.  Before Dr Chumley sets off to find Elwood, he says he wants to see how Ellwood ‘looks’ when he talks with Harvey.  There may be a curiosity here, I think, more than just a clinical prerogative; owing to the hat and its implications—whether or not Dr Chumley yet recognizes it as such.   Veta Louisa remarks to Dr Chumley that ‘they tell each other everything.’  Again, I had to wonder, has she been told this by Elwood, or does she somehow sense this from Elwood’s interactions with the invisible pookah?

 The next fairy moment in the scene happens after Mrs Chumley, curious, asks Wilson “What’s a pookah?”  Wilson; the hot-tempered attendant at the sanitarium—says he doesn’t know.  Curious, she picks up a large dictionary’ and looks the word up, but before she can read the entry, she realizes they are late for their cocktail party, puts the dictionary down_ and leaves.  Wilson, also curious, picks it up, and reads the entry:

 “… from old Celtic mythology; a fairy spirit in animal form, always very large.  The pookah appears here and there, now and then, to this one, and that one.  A benign, mischievous creature very fond of rum pots, crack pots and how are you Mr Wilson?”

Shocked by the unexpected address, Wilson looks around, shakes the dictionary, repeats “How are you, Mr Wilson?  Who in the encyclopedia wants to know?” and throws the book down.  He tries to tell Dr Chumley about what has just happened, but the doctor is in too much of a hurry to go and round-up Elwood, and they leave together.

The next fairy moment occurs at the Dowd house.  Elwood comes in, bringing home a portrait of himself and Harvey!  How did the artist know what to paint?  Artists are often said to be gifted with preternatural sight, or with having visions and being able to ‘see’ things other people cannot see.  While a too-generalizing stereotype, could the very existence of the painting indicate that the artist may have had some intuition or imaginary experience that allowed him or her to depict Harvey in a way satisfactory to Elwood?  From a naturalistic point of view, Elwood may simply have described Harvey and, not ever having ‘seen’ him himself, except in his own imagination, accepts the portrait as a good depiction of his best friend.  However, given Harvey’s reality, and being a pookah, I tend toward the former explanation.  After all, it is said that the pookah can be seen only by those who believe in his existence; and perhaps the artist is one such person?

Dr Sanderson and Miss Kelly, accompanied by an angry Wilson, eventually find Elwood at Charlie’s, apparently soon after Dr Chumley has left.  They attempt to get him to tell them where the doctor is; to which Elwood avers that he doesn’t know.  Elwood, seeming unconcerned with the whereabouts of the head psychiatrist, relates that while Dr Chumley was “somewhat frightened of Harvey at first,” that his fear turned to admiration ‘after a while.’  He then explains why he didn’t know where Dr Chumley was, as he had stepped up to the bar, and when he got back to the booth both Chumley and Harvey were gone.  They left together.   This is the trailhead of Dr Chumley’s journey into Faërie; having opened to the strangeness surrounding Harvey to leave with him!  Did he have a ‘fairy moment’ in that booth with the big, invisible white rabbit?  Is he now being fairy-touched, walking around somewhere, we can assume, with Harvey?  The end of the story would seem to indicate that he is! 

When Elwood explains that Dr Crumley left with Harvey, however, Wilson becomes infuriated, thinking that Elwood has harmed or even killed Dr Crumley.  Wilson goes to get the police, leaving Dr Sanderson and nurse Kelly together with Elwood at the bar.  They are both in a state of near enchantment as they talk with Elwood; a plausible effect of being in the aura of a fairy-touched person.  Elwood then does his usual ‘magic’ on others, here prompting Sanderson and Kelly to begin dancing together; which closes the breach that had opened between them after Dr Sanderson was dismissed from Chumley’s employee.  Here is another positive moment of Elwood’s fairy-influence on others; he often leaves the people with whom he interacts better off than when he met them.  As they dance and re-affirm their affection for one another, however, Elwood calmly gets up and leaves.

Seeing him leave, Sanderson and Nurse Kelly follow him out into the alley, where he tells them how he met Harvey; a story that has deep fairy resonance!  Elwood says he was helping an inebriated friend get into a cab, when he saw this strange humanoid rabbit standing by a lamppost.  Ellwood says he suggested the name “Harvey’ to the pookah, who then agreed that it was, actually, his name.  Naming a fairy friend, when the name is accepted by the fairy, is something which may bind the mortal to the immortal being.  After this they decided to go home together.  Harvey has been Elwood’s boon companion ever since.  It is during this discussion that Dr Sanderson says (admits?) to Elwood: “You know, Dowd, we all misplace reality, sooner or later.”  To which Elwood responds: “Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state, I finally won out over it.”  I was struck by Sanderson’s generalization; not ‘some people’ but “we all misplace reality.”  I would have liked to ask him what he meant by phrasing it that way_ or was he now a bit fairy-touched as well?

This story resonates with so many others in fairy lore of mortals meeting fairies and being befriended by them.  Elwood avers that he ‘doesn’t have much time;’ another characteristic feeling of those who have been fairy-touched, as they are partially outside normal time.  At another point in the film, it is said of Elwood that ‘all he cares about is that rabbit,’ which admits our normal over-emphasis on ‘this world’ and its pretensions and obligations – which the fairy-touched can in part leave go of.  Elwood also alludes to the enchantment others have experienced surrounding an experience of Harvey; how when they go into a bar together people turn to him and tell him their stories – “golden moments” to be remembered – “we enter as strangers” and after a while they become friends.  He admits that after meeting Harvey, “the same people seldom come back,” though a few do.  Those who do are no doubt more open than those who don’t to Other-Realities and people whose views and beliefs are different from their own.  Such people do not flee from or seek to avoid contact with the strangeness that is actually all around us, all the time, if we could but have eyes to see it.

This all builds up to the final scenes at the sanitarium which bring the fairy nature of this story to fruition.  Soon after the scene in the alley at the bar, we see Dr Chumley walking excitedly back to his institution, urgently demanding that Shimelplatzer open the gate for him.  He is agitated, letting out to the gatekeeper that he is being followed! “By whom?” Shimelplatzer asks.  “None of your business,” the doctor replies, trying to hold his composure intact in front of one of his employees.  We know, of course, that he had found Elwood at Charlie’s and apparently ‘met’ Harvey, then left with him.

Dr Chumley is clearly spooked and, upon entering the sanitarium, looks back to see if he can see who is following him.  Which he can’t, of course, because it’s Harvey!  After shutting the front door, he goes into his own office, locks the door_ and then is frightened by witnessing the door opening, without being unlocked.  This is another physical manifestation indicating Harvey’s reality.  Startled and in awe, he flees via the window, setting off the ‘escaped inmate’ alarm.

Outside, Sanderson, Kelly and Wilson have returned with Elwood in their ‘custody.’   They meet the frightened Chumley, who quickly recovers his poise and avers that ‘nothing is wrong,’ walking very quickly back into the rest home, telling the others he is going to his office.  But he can’t get in_ the door is locked!  So_ Harvey opened the door without unlocking it!?  [Like Marley in A Christmas Carol; another true fairy story—when he comes to visit Scrooge!]  Wilson – who has gone around to reconnoiter the grounds, unlocks the doctor’s office door from within, having come in through the window through which Chumley had escaped.

When Elwood is brought in, Dr Chumley immediately takes him into his office for a ‘private conversation.’  And here we reach the consummation of all the fairy moments; with the doctor asking Elwood questions, and Elwood telling the doctor anything he wants to know.   The exchange that ensued sent a chill down my back!

[Dr C:] “Mr Dowd, what kind of a man are you? … Where did you come from?” 
“Where on this tired old Earth did you find a thing like _ like_ him?” 
[Elwood:] “You mean Harvey, the pookah?” 
[Dr C:] “Yes, it’s true, those things you told me tonight. I know it now.”

Elwood then tells Dr Chumley about Harvey’s various fairy ‘talents.’  He affirms that Harvey can predict things that will happen – which they do – and then how the pookah can “stop time.”  Dr Chumley’s asks what this particular ‘power’ entails, to which Elwood says:

 “Harvey can look at your clock and stop it, and you can go anywhere you like, with anyone you like, and stay as long as you like, and when you get back, not one minute will have ticked by.”

This is a very clear description of going into fairyland and returning to ‘this world.’  Elwood states this ‘matter-of-factly,’ indicating that hey have both slipped into the edgewoods of Faërie at this point.  Dr Chumley responds – elated, feeling liberated in these revelations:

“Fly specks!  Fly specks!  I’ve been spending my life among fly specks, while miracles have been leaning on lampposts at 18^th and Fairfax.”

Dr Chumley’s queries whether Elwood has ever tried the offer time stop, to which Elwood says he has not, as he is happy where he is in his life.  Dr Chumley,  however, has a desire of his own, which he reveals – lying down upon a patient’s couch as if he is the one being analyzed! – of going to a camp outside Akron Ohio with a young, strange, quiet woman, each of these adjectives being characteristic of fairy women and princesses.  He wants to tell her all those things he never tells anyone else, and hear her say, “poor man.”  He needs a confessor!  He asks Elwood if Harvey might do this for him, to which Elwood replies that Harvey would have to say.  He would not speak for his friend; and while this is a common courtesy for many people, in fairy-lore one should never demand that a fairy friend or associate do such-and-such; but should always ask, politely.  To insult or upset a fairy can bring out their mischievous side and their playful tricksiness!

            Another fairy moment occurs when Veta Louise, Myrtle Mae and Judge Gaffney arrive at the sanitarium.  Veta says, on entering the reception area, “Oh good, nobody here but people.”  Might this also suggest that perhaps she can sense Harvey when he’s around!?

            The way of the world is always to make people as normal as possible; to force if not simply encourage them to conform so as to keep the illusion of normalcy from being shaken or broken.  This motif plays out in Dr Sanderson having a serum – called Formula 977 – that will return Elwood to ‘normalized reality.’  Elwood considers it, but doesn’t want it, as this serum, he realizes, would deprive him of his best friend; whom we know is no mere delusion.  Nevertheless, he agrees to the shot when he realizes his sister wants him to have it.  Elwood goes with Dr Sanderson and Nurse Kelly into his office for the procedure.  This now brings the story to—

The Eucatastrophe -- The Taxi Driver (Ellis Logfren)

            The taxi driver who brought Veta Louise, Myrtle Mea and the judge to the sanitarium, enters and requests to be paid.  The judge reaches for his wallet, but apparently doesn’t have it on him!  He can only believe he must have forgot it at home in his rush?  Veta Louisa then checks her purse, only to ‘realize’ that her coin purse isn’t there.  She assures Lofgren that her brother can pay him.  Elwood is brought out of Sanderson’s office – not yet having been given the shot – and makes his usual friendly acquaintance with the taxi driver; learning his name and the fact that he and his brother are both taxi drivers.  Elwood pays him, tips him well and then invites him and his brother to come to dinner the next evening, to which the driver agrees heartily.  These are now at least the 3^rd and 4^th invitees to that dinner!

            After Elwood goes back in to Dr Sanderson’s office for the shot, Lofgren says, in response to Vita Louise’s explanation that Elwood is there for Dr Sanderson’s serum:

“Listen lady, I’ve been driving this route for 15 years.  I brought them out to get that stuff and I drove them home after they had it.  It changes them.”

When Veta Louise replies with aloof self-confidence, “Well, I certainly hope so,” Lofgren then gives a vivid and cautionary comparison of how such people were, before and after the shot.  Before, they were kind, observant, conversant and they tipped well.  “Afterwards,” he says, “they crab at me.  …  They scream at me to hurry.  They have no faith in me and my buggey.”  He then surmises, “After this he’s going to be a perfectly normal human being—and you know what stinkers they are!”

            Veta Louisa is shocked out of her confidence by the revelation of Elwood becoming simply ‘normal,’ exclaiming “but I don’t like people like that!” _rushing to Dr Sanderson’s door, pounding on it, calling for Elwood to come out!  Judge Gaffney, not knowing what to make of her sudden reversal of intention, grabs Veta and says, “You don’t know what you want.  You didn’t want that rabbit, and then_”  To which Veta Louise replies, strongly, “what’s wrong with Harvey?”

            Out of love for her brother – as he is – Veta seems to have come to a reconciliation with Harvey’s existence in their lives, and doesn’t want her brother changed irrevocably into something merely ‘normal.’  She avers that if she and Myrtle Mae and Elwood consent to live with a pookah, what could be wrong with that?  This is a complete turn for her from her earlier stance at the beginning of the story, her awareness having been suddenly broken open by the taxi driver’s revelation.  She is taking-in and accepting the possibility of things she would not have formerly embraced!  While open-mindedness and the broadening of one’s horizons – which usually results in a diminishing of one’s prejudices – is a virtue for any human being to aspire toward, here it is clearly inspired by someone who is now is or is becoming fairy-touched.

            Elwood is released and they all get ready to go home.  Myrtle Mae and Wilson have been standing together during the eucatastrophic scene, obviously enamoured of each other, and when Elwood invites him to the house for dinner, Wilson – who has apparently also undergone some degree of change-of-heart – accepts and says he will ‘be there.’    I thought a lot about his response and Vita Louise’s change of heart after the movie was over, and came to see in them a deepening of tolerance for_ and acceptance of_ those who are not ‘like us;’ whoever the ‘us’ would be.  

            Before they leave, Veta checks her purse and, finding her coin purse, has another moment of revelation.  Realizing what may have really happened – she whispers, astonished, “Harvey!”  Her and Judge Gaffney have each experienced a fairy moment; another physical manifestation brought about by Harvey—making it seem that neither of them had the money with which to pay Lofgren.  If they had paid him, Ellwood would never have been brought out and Lofgren would probably not have been prompted to explain what the ‘serum’ does to its recipients.  Thus, no eucatastrophe.  Whether the judge’s wallet and Veta Mae’s coin purse were actually disappeared or whether they were simply made invisible like the pookah himself, each of them experienced a strangeness connected with Faërie breaking into our world.

            As they leave, there is another physical manifestation of Harvey’s presence: we see the swing moving as if someone is on it.  Elwood greets Harvey, who is sitting on the swing.  He apparently says that he is going to stay with Dr Chumley; a sad moment—though Elwood accepts that if this is what Harvey wants, he wants it, too.  Before he left the porch, I realized there was a full Moon shining in the night sky behind Elwood (As there is tonight, as I write this!).

            Elwood leaves, aloned, walking down toward the gate.  One has to wonder whether Dr Chumley got his trip to Akron, as he would have returned no more than a moment after he left.  Harvey may have done it for the doctor and then decided he would rather be with Elwood as his long-term friend.  Imagine Chumley in Akron Ohio, at a camp out in the woods, with a beautiful fairy-woman as his confessor!  What healing might that have effected in the doctor’s soul?  I find it interesting that he wanted to tell this woman – while spending two weeks with her in what would be but a moment in the Primary World – things he had not told anyone else.  This is like what Vita Louise said to Dr Sanderson when she confessed to having ‘seen’ Harvey.  Who among us doesn’t have things that they might sometime be redeemed of by honest confession in confidence with another person?

            After Elwood passes out through the gate, we get one last physical manifestation of Harvey’s presence; we see the switch-handle moving, the gate opening, and Elwood turning and greeting Harvey, who apparently says he prefers Elwood’s company, Elwood returning the compliment.  They walk out together, heading for a bus-stop, as the Judge, confusticated by Veta Louise’s change of mind after all she had put him through that day, had earlier taken the taxi home, leaving them to find their own way.

So for all of these reasons, I say this is a true fairy story; and not just because it has a pookah in it as a main character.  It is a tale about the disruption of the normal by a preternatural existent; a fairy, specifically!  It is a story about a man who has been befriended by a Pookah – called a “nature spirit” in the film – and who is his willing companion in life.  This is all so very fairy!  Mortals and fairies becoming friends is a long-standing theme in the lore!  Elwood is in effect living partly in Faërie; that world having come to overlap the boundaries of ‘the normal’ – the accepted ordinary reality – in Elwood’s natural realm, transfiguring it, liberating Elwood in a strange way from subservience to ordinary ‘normalcy’ and the constriction of the mortal spirit by strictures that do not facilitate genuine self-realization.  Elwood now acts according to the fairy ideals of Compassion—Generosity—Hospitality (like Nicholas in my Legend story[7]) because he is fairy-touched, and treats all people as people, rather than under the blinding rubric of “those people” vs “us.”  He invited an ex-con, a taxi driver and his brother, a doctor or two, and a nurse to dinner—and possibly more people.  Imagine that!

                    What an ‘Alice’ (i.e., “in Wonderland”) dinner that might be![8]

           I felt, at the end of the story, that Veta Louise and Myrtle Mae would now become more accepting of Elwood and Harvey, and treat them better, too, growing into a deeper appreciation of them and who they are.  That next night, when the invitees showed up, I believe, they would no doubt have had a wonderful evening together.  After their acceptance of the Pookah in their lives, Veta Louise and Myrtle Mae might well gather to themselves better – and more interesting – friends than those stuffy women of the ‘Society Club’ who were there at the beginning.  [Not to say that those women could not come under fairy-influence as well and be loosed of their societally-inculcated bonds).  That would be a real fairy ending!   This film is urging us that people can learn to respect and accept one another.

            I imagined an ending to the movie (which wasn’t filmed) with everyone at the Dowd House; people from various walks of life—being brought together and under the influence of Faërie!  Wouldn’t that be wonderful!  I also imagined that Veta Louise and Myrtle Mae need not be so concerned about her ‘coming out’ in society and finding a husband, as she and Wilson have hit-it-off.  As Wilson is invited to the dinner, I imagine him sitting with Myrtle Mae, perhaps hearing the stories – glad, sad or traumatic – of the other people at the table, Harvey’s presence making it a safe place for such deep communion between strangers to be possible.  My hope is that Wilson would become fairy-touched along with the rest of the staff from Chumley’s Rest Home who are present at the dinner – including Dr Chumley; and that in future he may have a more compassionate, accepting way of treating those committed to the institution.

             Perhaps this is but a fairy-dream; and this film but a fairy fiction—yet I aver it is one worth dreaming.  Because in Dreams such as this we may see the things that could well inspire us to live a better life and help inspire others toward a better life as well.

 So mote it be.  Amen.

 

finis

 

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[1] Quote found on the website: https://www.irishamerica.com/2016/10/mary-chase-the-woman-behind-harvey/ referencing an interview “toward the end of her life” in Toronto for the CBC.

[2] Eostre is the name given to the first Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox.  She was an Anglo-Saxon goddess of the Vernaltides, feasts and celebrations being held during March – called Eosturmonath.  In the Paganism to which I was introduced in the 1970’s she is associated with the pookah, who is her ‘companion’ and consort during the Vernal Equinox celebrations.  If you want to know more about the Pookah, see my blog “Drumming up the Pookah” (25 March 24)

[3] Faërie – (pronounced “Fay-er-ie) = “the place and the practice, the essential quality, of enchantment.” (23, Fleger, 2002)  And also, in Verlyn Fleger’s  A Question of Time: J R R Tolkien;s Road to Faërie (1997):  “He called it Faërie, by which he meant both a spell cast and the altered and chanted state the spell produced.” (p. 2)

[4] This is almost my height, though I am not a rabbit.

[5] Tolkien’s primary example of a dyscatastrophe is the story of Beowulf, whose final confrontation with a monster could not be avoided, and yet could not be survived.  Tolkien’s translation is engaging and well-worth the read.

[6] Later, at Charlie’s, Wilson laments, after they realize that Dr Chumley’s location cannot be determined for the last four hours since he was last seen, “Poor Dr Chumley may be layin’ in an alley in a pool of blood.”

[7] “The Legend of Nicholas and the Elves” – a version of which published as the centerpiece of Heart and Hearth (2008) and another, longer version which I hope to publish as a separate ‘novella.’

[8] The allusions to – and resonances with – Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories are hard to miss in this film.