Critique on “The Wasteland”

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - III

Paper no.E-C-301

Year – 2010-11

Topic: Critique on “The Wasteland”

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Every era or century has its own importance in Literature. 20^th century literature has its own significance in terms of literature. It has drawn people towards new form, new way of literature. It has focused on human life very minutely. It has been in told in the 20^th century literature that, there is nothing like linear structure. Ambiguity, Nihilism, futility, existentialism (?) purposelessness, meaninglessness and black humor or dark humor, all these are themes of  The Modernist Literature, which can be read in the works of 20^th century literature. This literature wanted to break the previous generations all rules.

The term Modernism is widely used to identify new and distinctive features in the subjects, forms, concepts and styles of literature and the other arts in the early decades of the 20^th century, but especially after World War-I (1914-18). The specific features signified by modernism (or by the adjective modernist) vary with the user, but many critics agree that it involves a deliberate and radical break with some of the traditional basis not only of Western Art but, of Western Culture in general. Important intellectual precursors of Modernism, in this sense, are thinkers who had questioned the certainties that had supported traditional modes of social organization, religion and morality, and also traditional ways of conceiving the human self thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and James G. Frazer whose 12 Volumes “The Golden Bough” (1890-1915) stressed the correspondence between central Christian tenets and pagan, often barbaric, myths and rituals.

(- “A HANDBOOK OF LITERARY TERMS” by M.H. Abrams)

“The entire literature of twentieth century can be read as an attempt to deal with the discovery of the hopelessness of courage and the fallibility of mankind in the face of ‘WAR’.”

(-“History of English Literature” by Pramod K. Nair)

This is how the views on 20^th century literature or the Modernist literature has been discussed that shows that it has portrayed the nothingness and purposelessness of the Human being.

“The Wasteland” by T.S. Eliot:-

Thomas Stearns Eliot is a well-known name for his literary contribution in the Modernist Literature. He is famous for his poetry, essays and criticism in the literature. Specifically in the poems, “The Wasteland” is an incredible work of 20^th century literature. Hugh Kenner has written in the introduction of “T.S.  Eliot- A Collection of Critical Essays” that he is also the first age, devoted to serious and systematic, indeed curricular, scrutiny of its own literature. In 1922, “The Wasteland” was published, which is written in five parts. Every part has its own significance and symbolism. The names of those five parts are as follow:

(i)                The Burial Of The Dead

(ii)             A Game of Chess

(iii)           The Fire Sermon

(iv)            Death by Water

(v)              What The Thunder Said

Let’s discuss all five parts at length.

      

   (1) The Burial of The Dead:-

The title of this part of the poem is taken from a line in the Anglican burial service. It is made up of four vignettes, each seemingly from the perspective of the different speaker. The first part of this poem can be seen as a modified dramatic monologue. In this first part, there are four speakers who are frantic in their need to speak, to find an audience, but they find themselves surrounded by dead people, and frustrated by outside circumstances, like wars. The very first title of the first part of this poem shows its gloomy and forlorn tone, because of the war and that situation compel to lead them in a dusky world and this makes them utterly miserable and mournful. Because of this chaotic situation, the effect in this poem, is not one of the overpowered impressions of a single character in stead, the reader is fooled by the feeling of being trapped in a crowd, unable to identify a familiar face. This is the effect of this part that it shakes very first reader’s mind that readers also feel chaos in the first part of this poem.

As the poem’s dedication indicates Eliot received a great amount of guidance from Ezra Pound, who encouraged him to cut large sections of the planned work and to break up the rhyme scheme. It is suggested by recent scholarship that Eliot’s wife, Vivien, also had a significant role in the final form of this poem. This poem, “The Wasteland” starts with the reference to Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”. In this case, though April is not the happy month of pilgrimages and story-telling. It is in-stead the time when the land should be regenerating after a long winter. In the Modern world Winter is really more desirable, because it is the time of forgetfulness and numbness, because people are very forgetful and insensible in their nature in the modern world. Here, we can see the sarcasm of Eliot on the modern people. In this poem memory plays a very significant role. Memory creates a clash of the past with the present. Marie reads for most of the nights and this excessive reading refers to remember a better past, which could cultivate a consistent literary culture. It refers to the thing that this poem is like a collage to make it a compact one, perhaps, it refers to Eliot’s reading also to write this poem. The second episode contains a troubled religious proposition. The speaker shows true Wasteland “stony rubbish”; in it, he says, man can identify only “a heap of broken images” yet this thing seems to offer salvation: shade and vision of something new and different. The vision consists only of nothingness. No longer have religious event achieved through Christ, truth is represented by a mere void. Here, we can see the concepts of the Christianity.

The third episode explores Eliot’s interest with transformation. Here, this transformation is associated with fraud, vulgarity and ridiculous mysticism. The final episode of the first part allows Eliot finally to establish the true Wasteland of the poem, the modern city or the unreal city. Here, again Eliot satirizes on the modernity, which is expressed by him as an unreal thing. That city is bleak and depopulated where only ghosts from the past are as the inhabitants.

   

   (2)  A Game of Chess:-

This section’s title is derived from the two plays by the early 17^th century playwright, Thomas Middleton, in one which the movies in a game of chess denote stages in a seduction. The second part is divided in two sections; there is a portrait of a rich, highly groomed woman surrounded by exquisite furnishings. As she waits for a lover, her phobic thoughts become frantic, meaningless cries. Her day ends with plans for an excursion and a game of chess. In the second section of this second part of the poem, another wretched woman describes her pathetic situation of her life. These two women in this second part of the poem are described as a representation of the modern sexuality. One side of this sexuality is a arid, dehydrated exchange inseparable from neurosis and self-destruction, and the other side of this sexuality is an unbridled fertility connected with a lack of culture and rapid aging. Here, Eliot makes sarcastic remarks on the sexuality of the modern life.

   

   (3)  The Fire Sermon:-

This third part of this poem is the longest one in the poem. Moreover, the title of this part is derived from the Buddha’s sermon in which he advises to his followers to relinquish earthly passions and seek freedom from earthly things. In this section also, we can see the image of Christianity- water and fishing. Both refer to regeneration and life. This third part starts with a stark river side scene. Rats and garbage surround the speaker who is fishing. These two words arise the feeling of grime and sordidness. Here, in this third part, the speaker of this poem, Tiresias who is introduced to us. He has both male and female features and he is also blind but he can make prophecy. Here, in this part, there is a description of a young typist and her lover who is a clerk. Their encounter reveals their actions. The sound “Twit, twit, twit, jug, jug…” in the poem also symbolizes to sexual perversion. The people of the wasteland think that there is a pleasure in sexual intercourse but it is not so. It is all about mechanical life.

   (4)  Death by Water:-

As the name or the title suggests, Eliot has displayed the ridiculous attempt of the man towards God. In this poem, this is the shortest section. It describes a man, Phlebas, the Phoenician, who dies apparently by drowning in the sea. He challenges the almighty and he has to face the result. The narrator asks his reader to think about Phlebas and recall his or her own mortality. If you go against the God, or you challenge the God then, the end of your life is like Phlebas. Here, we can see the concept of the Christianity. One can never cross their limits or can never go against the almighty. Here, in this part, the symbol of Sea symbolizes Death. As Frye has described in his Archetypal theory that sea symbolizes for the death. The prime consideration of this short section is to claim ideas of renewal and regeneration. In this part, Madame Sosostris’s prophecy, “Fear death by water”, becomes true and another thing is the language and from of this part shows the biblical story which is rich in meaning.

   

   (5)  What the Thunder Said:-

First of all, the title of this part of this poem is taken from the “Upnishad”. Moreover, this last part of the poem is more dramatic in both things like, in its imagery as well as in events also. A decaying chapel is described, which suggests the chapel in the legend of the Holy Grail. According to this Hindu fables, the Thunder “gives”, “Sympathizes”, and “controls” through its “speech”. Eliot initiates into a meditation on each of these aspects of the thunder’s power. In this Final part, three roles are introduced to us- Datta, Dayadhvam and Damyata. Datta means, you must become a “Giver”. Do not be so selfish or a person who always expect more and more from the others. Dayadhvam refers to the thing that you must also become a person with having mercy upon the people, and try to be an egoless man. Do not be so pride on you. The third role, Damyata tells us that you must self-control on your passions, ambitions and desires. If your desires, passions and ambitions run amok, then, you have to face the result. So you must have self-control on yourself.

Conclusion:-

Eliot describes the five different parts to show the futile modernity. He tells if you want to achieve salvation, then, follow the three mentioned roles that he displays in the final part. His journey starts from the first part “The Burial of the Dead” and he gets the answer of spiritual salvation in the final part which reflects Upnishad’s importance and he makes us feel by writing, “Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.”