Blithe Spirit

When the third act begins, Charles is wearing “a band of deep mourning” (63). This band is ironic, as while he is publicly mourning his wife, he knows her spirit is still present. It will also underscore his hypocrisy when he deserts the house at the end of the play. The private reality of his marriage is not reflected in his appearance.

Madame Arcati’s extreme guilt functions as both a sincere expression of grief and another moment of exaggerated acting. Coward uses this combination to lighten the dark themes of his play for his war-weary audience. Madame Arcati’s belief that one more try would have made a difference is amusing after dozens attempts earlier in Act II. When contrasted with her reaction, Charles’s refusal to hold himself accountable at all for Ruth’s death is particularly stark and upsetting. 

Elvira’s desire to go back to the spirit world now reflects her disillusionment with love, loyalty, and her relationship with Charles. Ruth’s presence and Charles’s indifference have outweighed Elvira’s desire to win him. Elvira’s insistence on privacy is, on the one hand, humorous, as Madame Arcati cannot see or hear her, but when Elvira begins to discuss Madame Arcati’s abilities, it becomes clear Elvira is worried about Charles being heard.

Whether sincere or performative, Elvira reflects upon their relationship. She notes how there “was a time when [he]’d have welcomed the chance of being with [her] for ever and ever” (67). Elvira’s understanding of loyalty is not typical; Charles’s description that her behavior had “shocked [him] immeasurably” is labeled “unscrupulous” (67). She finds his disloyalty immoral. Yet the uncertainty surrounding the reality of her feelings is complicated when she describes her crying as “only ghost tears” (67). While it's possible she is only using that phrase to goad Charles, it may also reflect how Charles constantly dismisses shows of emotion. He does just that after Elvira declares he was undeserving of her love, describing it as “near impertinence” (67). Charles does not take her declarations seriously, but he has not listened to other characters throughout the play that the audience knows to be truthful.

After her death, Charles now reshapes his understanding of his second marriage. Ruth “helped” and “encouraged” his writing (68). Most pointedly, she did a “damned sight more than” Elvira did (68). When presented with a nagging wife, he imagines the other as the perfect wife, especially when she is not present or alive. In the first scene of the play, Charles is unable to come up with a negative quality about Elvira. Now, he does the same thing when discussing Ruth.

Elvira’s sincerity becomes even more questionable once the extent of her affairs becomes clear. She had at least two lovers, and she died from her indiscretion. Her desire to have romantic encounters lead to her riding a boat in the rain with Guy Henderson. While she initially frames her encounter with Guy as a forced kiss to deny cheating, she eventually reveals she had multiple sexual encounters with Captain Bracegirdle. Her claims to everlasting loyalty are contradicted by the actions of her life.

Charles’s plan to flee the house reflects his rejection of domestic life and the constraints that come with it. His wives are unable to leave the house, a metaphorical version of the domestic expectations for upper class women. Charles, as a man, is able to leave both the home and the marriages.

The materialization of Ruth solidifies Charles’s rejection and abandonment of her. Any commitment he felt for her has now died, and Charles takes the “till death do us part” element of the traditional wedding vows as an indication that he is now free from the bonds of his marriage to both women. The seriousness of Ruth’s materialization is contrasted with the broad humor of Madame Arcati’s trance, as a table falls over and Madame Arcati falls in a trance and pulls the table over her like a blanket.

The reunion of Ruth and Charles is far from joyous. The trio immediately start bickering, and Elvira wishes that a sentence is “all [Ruth] could say” (75). Ruth nags Charles, telling him he has been “behaving very shabbily” (76). The spiteful jabs and cruel comments reflect the unlikability of the characters while presenting marriage as destructive and empty. This unlikability is intentional, as it removes any sympathy from the characters, leaving the audience free to enjoy the humor and absurdity of the play as a whole without really considering the tragic nature of both Elvira’s and Ruth’s deaths. The objective is the same with the emptiness of the marriages—Coward’s intention is less a commentary on marriage in general than it is about Charles’s marriages specifically, which also allows the audience to skim over how poorly he is treating the women and focus on how ridiculous the whole situation is.

While love could not unite any of the couples, hate of Charles unites Ruth and Elvira, if only temporarily. Elvira notes the wives have “waited on [him] hand and foot” before asking Ruth to confirm (76). Ruth does the same, suggesting he has only tried “to get rid of [them] ever since [they] came” before turning to Elvira (76). Unlike much of the play, the women are using the plural pronoun we to show their uniform disgust with Charles.

In a moment of ironic humor, Charles must reject Madame Arcati’s assessment that he is their true love. According to her, “[l]ove is a strong psychic force” that “can work untold miracles” such that “true love call can encompass the universe” (78). After many scenes of fights with his wives, it is clear that his love is not what called them back. The reveal that Edith summoned Elvira and Ruth is the height of absurdity. A minor character without a clear motivation is apparently so devoted to her mistresses that she summons them back from the dead. Edith is a “[n]atural” (80). Without meaning to and despite her lack of training, Edith is able to travel as a spirit, materialize the wives, and ultimately dematerialize the wives.

Ruth and Elvira’s final lines reveal a lot about their characters. Ruth nags Charles, promising he won’t be “getting rid of” them so easily as he has “behaved atrociously” (85). She’ll stay in the house simply to bother him. Elvira focuses on her sexual infidelity, describing her many encounters with Captain Bracegirdle that she “couldn’t have enjoyed” any more (85). Despite their presumed impending departure, neither woman tells Charles a word of love or loyalty.

Madame Arcati’s suggestion to “go away immediately” seems foreboding until she gives a mundane explanation. She is concerned that the house holds “memories both grave and gay in every corner of it” (84), but this too is undercut when she warns of unknown supernatural beings he should flee from “as soon as possible” (84). When pressed, she simply says, “Quien sabe,” which translates to “who knows” from Spanish (84). Madame Arcati’s abilities and perception are left ambiguous even in the end.

Charles’s final dialogue also reveals much about his character. He calls to the wives just to mock them, as he can go “a long way away” where they will not “be able to follow” (85). With the women silenced, he goads them. He calls Elvira “very silly” (85), admits gleefully to an affair, and declares his knowledge about her affair. He follows this up by admitting to being “reasonably faithful” to Ruth (85), stating he would have soon ended his marriage with Ruth, and describing how he found her “off-putting” (85). He is able to leave now. His declaration that he is going to “enjoy” himself as he had not done before suggests he will enjoy his new-found availability and sexual freedom.

The final image of a house falling apart is both humorous and ambiguous. The fate of the women is unclear. Whether the women could leave and follow Charles is not definitively answered. While Charles is free in many ways, nothing in the play suggests this means he will be happy. The themes pertaining to love, loyalty, and marriage have a darkly pessimistic message, so despite the humor of falling objects and invisible ghost women, the play ends in a moment of bleak darkness.