Category: The Waste Land

He’ll want to know what you done with the money he gave you To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. You have them all out Lil, and get a nice set, He said, I swear, I can’t bare to look at you. And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert, He’s been in the army for four years, he wants a good time, And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said. Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said. Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look. HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME. (T S Eliot, The Waste Land, 38-39)

These lines from Eliot break several stereotypes many artists and authors use to represent women in WWI. Specifically, Eliot does not buy into woman’s sexual unfaithfulness, cosmopolitan lifestyle, or their wildness the way that some war authors do, and in fact often directly contradicts these ideals. In the above passage, men find themselves portrayed as the unfaithful ones in relationships, who leave their wives when they find themselves dissatisfied sexually or even with their wife’s appearance. Interestingly, this way of portraying men appears quite different from most descriptions of WWI relationships. Many authors often portray women as the unfaithful ones in this time period. When the men leave to fight in war, women get the unique opportunity to “run wild.” Many believe that women took the opportunity to become sexually promiscuous in wartime. Through Eliot’s poem, the reader learns that this idea of women’s behaviors does not always hold true. The poem breaks these stereotypes by turning the tables on the men, making them the ones with the opportunities to cheat and portraying them as prone to infidelity.

Similarly, the tone in this passage provides another way for the reader to notice the effect of war on women, not as a positive one, as some authors argue, but as bleak and despairing. First, the women speak in a heavy dialect, not making use of proper English, allowing the reader to associate them with a lower class. Also, the reader finds these women in a bar, at closing time, something the bartender’s interjection of “Hurry up please, it’s time,” refuses to let the reader forget. Their presence at a pub, so late at night, and their discussion of frank sexuality seem masculine, or at least not what one typically considers “lady-like.” It appears that Eliot believes that war defeminizes women to some degree, and because of the absence of men in their lives, these women portray a sense of masculinity, perhaps as a way to make up for the male companionship they miss. This idea seems off to a reader, who sympathizes with the hopelessness the women feel.

Some propaganda in this period suggests that women experience little hardship and often lead lives of leisure during the wartime. Yet the women of this poem speak in somber tones, and discuss serious, painful subjects; certainly enjoying neither wartime nor it’s aftermath. They experience what many British citizens felt at this moment in history: a post-wartime sense of disillusionment. The war ended, yet big problems still exist throughout the country. Even the title of this poem, The Waste Land, plays on this idea. The country experienced bombings that destroyed the land, a generation of men was “lost” in battle, and those that returned, returned shattered. Eliot disagrees with the age-old idea that “war is glorious,” and he shows this through the disillusioned sense these women find in themselves, drinking in a bar, lacking the comforts of men.

Once more portraying the idea of the limited number of men, these two women discuss the willingness that other woman feel to meet soldier’s sexual desires. Eliot portrays men as desiring sex because of their somewhat forced celibacy in wartime. Albert, in particular, presumably endured the absence of sex for four years, and now wants to find his wife willing to meet his needs. The suggestion that the persona of the poem may “make a move” on her friend, Lil’s husband, hints toward the fact that many men did not return home because they died in battle, leaving single women desperate for companionship. This shortage of men resulted in a shortage of potential husbands for the women on the home front. The two women in the above passage discuss their friend Lil’s haggard appearance and her estrangement from her husband. The fact that others cannot bear to look at her also disproves the notion that during the war, women were fashionable, kept up their appearance, and were hygienically better off than the soldiers. This illustrates another way that Eliot hints on the masculine roles that women took on because of the war. That people cannot stand to lay eyes upon her proves that she is no longer a sexual object, or desirable by men. Her friends gossip about her appearance, proving her looks problematic to society. This again shows that women’s experience of the war as anything but glorious: it too was dirty, miserable, and hopeless.

As mentioned briefly before, the bartender continuously interjects into the conversation between the women with “hurry up its time.” This further portrays the idea of disillusionment. For a country that literally needs to start from the ground up, what should it do with the concept of time? For many soldiers, time ran out on the battlefield, and they found themselves left behind. For those in mourning over these losses, time seems cruel, just continuous moments that they endure without the departed. The reminder of time from the bartender represents a reminder of what the women have lost because of the war, and the bleakness of the future. These women try to ignore the constant reminders from the bar tender because they do not want to go back home to reminders of what they have lost. The bar represents a chance to escape for these women, not a place to go flirt with men and run wild. Again Eliot invalidates the idea of war as a fun sort of adventure for women.

These lines of Eliot’s The Waste Land serves to discredit believes that some hold in regards to women in WWI. Other authors portray them as uninvolved and unaffected by the war, yet Eliot shows they suffered in their own rights. Eliot’s women worry about finding and keeping a husband, having enough money to get by, and whether or not to trust their friends. They too suffered loss at the hands of war, and their futures look as bleak as those of males. This poem becomes an opportunity for the reader to see women of WWI in quite a contradictory light than they are often portrayed.

TS Eliot uses water as a motif throughout the Waste Land. It is shown in different lights: at the beginning we can see that water is the cause of death and in the last book we see water an essential asset for life. Eliot links water to religion and spirituality to create a clear connection between the decay of the modern world and the drowned Phoenician sailor. I will also discussion how Eliot uses physical landscapes with water to show the decay of modern society and its changed ways.

Firstly, the physical landscapes in ‘The Burial of the Dead’ show a wasteland without water. ‘The dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water.’ This line draws a connection between lack of water, dryness of the land and infertility. The sibilance of the dull ‘d’ sound in the words ‘dry’ and ‘dead’ adds to the emphasis put on the infertile and lifeless landscape that Eliot creates. The absence of water is shown through the ‘dead tree’ which ‘gives no shelter’ because all the leaves have dried up and fallen. He is trying to convey that water is essential to life and without it we are nothing. Another connotation of this quotation could be that Eliot is trying to show the death of modern society by using water as a symbol for religion.

This particular quotation links to the book of Ecclesiasticus in the Bible and we can find this link in the notes that Eliot has given us. The extract is saying that the modern man cannot reach the sort of purified state that a religious man can, such as Eliot himself, because we are in a barren wasteland that lacks religion, in the form of water. By using water as a motif, we can see just how devout Eliot is towards religion because he goes far enough to say that religion is just as important as water in his eyes and we all know that water is essential for life. Water can also have a negative impact, for example in ‘The Burial of the Dead’ we see the first appearance of the drowned Phoenician sailor who died from excess water. Here we see water in a different light – a cause of death. The drowned Phoenician sailor is from the tarot cards that Madame Sosostris (the clairvoyant) is naming. ‘Here, said she, is your card, the drowned Phoenician sailor.’ In this quotation we see that the clairvoyant is associating the card with the narrator. Here, Eliot might be saying that the drowned sailor is representing the modern man and that modern society will drown. On the other hand, the drowned sailor could also be referring the English myth of the Fisher King who was guarding the holy grail. Once again Eliot is using religion ideology to some extent to highlight the lack of spirituality in modern society. The Fisher King was the last in a long line of ancestors in charge of keeping the holy grail. The Fisher king always had wounds on his legs or groin.

The Fisher King could relate to the drowned sailor and be saying that the world is wounded without religion and the injuries to the groin show infertility which was previously shown in the physical wasteland in the first book. Water is acting as symbol of death this time. Later in the first book Eliot finishes of the point he is making with a statement through the clairvoyant, ‘Fear death by water.’ This statement sums up the idea of water being in a different light. It also gives a foreboding sense for the modern world as this imagery could have two meanings. The warning from the fortune teller could be saying that we need to avoid dying like the sailor but also avoid dying from a lack of spirituality which is expressed through the use of water in the place of religion. Eliot uses the Thames River, surrounding London and how the water has changed in order to demonstrate the decay of modern society. He also alludes from the famous poet, Edmund Spencer, when he describes the river. In ‘The Fire Sermon’ Eliot takes the line ‘Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song’ from Edmund Spencer so he can contrast his poetry with Spencer’s. Spencer’s Thames is clean and an immortalized place. This contrasts with Eliot’s description which says, ‘The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends.’ Even though it says, ‘no empty bottles’ we assume that Eliot is being sarcastic as he finishes of the stanza with ‘the nymphs are departed.’ Nymphs are defined as mythological spirits of nature imagined as beautiful maidens inhabiting rivers, woods, or other locations. This means that Eliot’s Thames is not a thing of beauty therefore we adopt that it is disgusting, and that Eliot is being sarcastic.

The polluting of a once beautiful river described by Spencer could be saying that the modern world is the cause of the filthy water that is lacking beauty. The items in the water could also show the activities the modern society are indulging in. The use of asyndeton emphasises and exaggerates the volume of waste that has inundated the river that was once attractive. For example, ‘cigarette ends’ and ‘empty bottles’ show that nowadays people move more towards drugs and intoxication in their spare time instead of reflecting on their life and being religious. This links back to my initial point where water is essential for life and is a symbol for religion. Here, Eliot is using visual imagery to show how the modern world’s source of life (water) is polluted. Furthermore, in ‘Death by Water’ we finally see the outcome of Madame Sosostris’ warning through Phlebas the drowned sailor who did not avoid death by water. This is another negative impact of water. ‘A current under the sea picked his bones in whispers.’ This description tells us that Phlebas is long dead as he has only little ‘whispers’ of flesh left on his bones and that too is being washed away by the water. Eliot is using the water as a method of cleansing. The water took away ‘his age and youth entering the whirlpool.’ The notion of a whirlpool gives connotations of a sink where water is sucked down into the drain. Phlebas has been sucked down away from the world.

Eliot is using Phlebas as an example of the modern man – ‘Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.’ Phlebas has been cleansed by the waters of spirituality as he was once young and frivolous just like the people who have moved away from the necessity of religion. The indicative phrase ‘Consider Phlebas’ is aims at modern society as Eliot makes a clear connection between Phlebas’ death and the future of this new modern society that goes against Eliot’s ideology. Finally, water is put in a positive light in the concluding book, ‘What the Thunder Said’, where it is accompanied by another wasteland and the possible revival of society. Eliot opens with a possible reference to the Crucifixion of Christ and how modern people are in the world where Jesus is not present.

The direct reference is ‘he who was living is now dead and we who were living are now dying.’ This quote shows that without Jesus we will eventually die, and that modern society are the people who ‘are dying.’ Eliot is driving his point home in the final book so that it sticks in the reader’s mind. Then Eliot uses water in a wasteland to reiterate his point but by water in the place of Christ. Lines such as ‘Here is no water but only rock / Rock and no water’ show that water is absent in this metaphorical wasteland. The repetition of the idea on the following line exaggerates the thirst the people have and how desperate they really are. By saying ‘only rock’ we can see just how infertile the land is and just how hopeless these people are. The wasteland inhabitants are so thirsty that they are hallucinating: ‘If there were water we should stop and drink.’ Eliot is trying to illustrate that water would bring back health and rationalism. Eliot extends this point by mentioning that ‘one can neither stand nor lie.’ This shows that patience is running out and that the emergence of the situation is making them uncomfortable.

The lack of rain has made the river low, and the ‘limp leaves / wait for rain’ the same way that modern people wait for something to give them new spiritual life. The people are made to suffer just like Eliot wants because they are the cause of the lack of water as they have moved away from religion which has been a symbol of water throughout the ‘Waste Land.’ In conclusion, Eliot has given his thoughts on modern society and in the final book he has described the outcome of the modern world if the world carries on as it is. The modern world is decaying just like Phlebas the Phoenician did. Eliot uses water to show decay and importance of religion as he alludes from the Bible and other influential poets on his time – before modern society.

Most of piece of writing values aren’t told expressly. Several values were hidden between words. The words can have 2 interpretations that are the literal that means and also the hidden meaning. This double that means principally are often found in poetry in type of sign. Those signs will have completely different that means besides the literal meaning. The assistance to interpret signs is semiotic. Semiotic could be a study concerning signs. In his reading of The Waste Land, Philip Sicker points out: ‘The poem is a couple of sexual failure that signifies a contemporary non secular failure. Indeed, as Sicker points out, there is a variety of sexual implications within the Waste Land, and these sexual implications are related to the sense of the loss of a vicinity of the body.

The poem proceeds, the grief of the loss of faith extends to a sense of despair towards the end. The gradual process of the change of people hurts Arnold because people are unaware of the changes taking place and they do not think it particularly wrong and sinful. Arnold compares his feelings with the feelings of Sophocles, a great play writer, who also listened to the sad music of the waves, which brought into his mind the miserable plight of humanity. Before the development of science and technology, people had truly believed in the religion and thought that they were in total control of God. The metaphor ‘Sea of Faith’ which presents the religious faith of people, used to be full, beautifully spread out and deep. This sea of faith once enriched and protected the entire humanity. But, now the sea of faith is no longer full because the people have turned their backs on God and they have involved themselves in the glamour of materialism. Arnold points out that without faith humans are ‘Naked’; they have no protection, and defense. Arnold presents the uncertainty of the longer term of humans. The world of science and technology appears to be a dream world – therefore stunning, so varied, extraordinarily esthetic, and so new. The author feels that there’s no real joy and happiness left during this world, it’s solely a deceptive and delightful mirage. Arnold expresses the failings of modernism during this literary work. He believes that modernization of the globe will definitely bring an entire loss of religion.

The technique of assembling “fragments” or “broken images” from the past into a kind of mosaic allows him right away to recommend parallels between modern issues and earlier historical things and to befuddle the reader, turning the reading process into a model of contemporary, urban confusion. It parallels the cubist use of collage, occupation attention to the linguistic texture of the verse form itself and to the material. Like Matthew Arnold, Eliot conjointly appreciated the diligence of thought and a spotlight to culture and art. The verse form functions as associate outlet for Eliot’s anxieties round the loss of cultural and ethical identity or moral degradation. He’s singing his dislike for his surroundings within the Post warfare I. The title The Waste Land describes his sentiments of the dry infertile world. The globe that “lacks ancient structures of authority and belief”, thus, solely containing “soil which will not be tributary to new growth” (Lewis). Section 5 of the verse form reconnects to the initial concepts found in section one. Eliot Says:

“There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain There is not even solitude in the mountains. The literary composition as “efforts of the fashionable literary imagination to mythologize the expertise of contemporary life” (227). notwithstanding whether or not he’s prospering or not in looking for an answer within the values of the past, the fashionable man creates a dismal image of contemporary Europe through subtly however urgently expressing his want for a cure for his disillusionment by frequently returning to the past. information of this modernist reasoning is crucial in understanding the principle, logic, or philosophy that’s underlying The Waste Land—the foundational force that binds the fragmented parts of the literary composition and provides them which means is, as Brooker argues, The poem’s continuous however refined target the past reflects the modernist viewpoint;. as a result of they are disenchanted with the condition of their society, modernists don’t believe that the currently existing concepts of their society can restore happiness and security within the future.

The term “modern” is usually understood as associate degree adjective expressing the state of being modern or possessing the qualities of current vogue. In art and culture, however, the terms fashionable and modernism pertain to the beliefs and philosophy of the society throughout the late nineteenth to the first twentieth century. as a result of the thought has THE WASTE LAND five two totally different accepted meanings, the characteristics that represent modernism and also the modern world ought to be outlined to know The Waste Land as a modernist verse form.

The whole literary work is that the speech of 1 unidentified male character selfaddressed to a unidentified lady, presumptively his beloved. there’s no dramatic interaction between them in this the feminine observer is silent throughout the literary work. Everything concerning the passive observer and also the dramatic scenario is discovered within the speech of the speaker. The time is night and also the place could be an area with a window dominating Dover beach in European country.

The cultural phenomenon of modernism arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in result of wanting to break past generic works and create something new and modern as another way of expressing the changes of society. Pre-modernism was a way that people created things like art in service of god. Literature was created to document history or particular lifestyles as they happened. The modernists always wanted to progressively make their work better. An author from the modernist period, known as James Joyce, has written many novels such as Dubliners, The Dead, Araby, Finnegan’s Wake, The Sisters and Ulysses. Another Author that is very famous for his poems during the modernist period is Thomas Sterns Eliot. T.S. Eliot has written famous poems that include The Waste Land, The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock, The Hollow Men and Rhapsody on a Windy Night. The main books that will be focused on are The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land, by James Joyce. I will be analyzing modernism, by looking at these writers and their works.

James Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet whose literary works were some of the most important works from the modernist era. His most famous literary works is Dubliners, Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake. An example of one of Joyce’s work is “Dubliners”. Joyce first submitted “Dubliners” in 1905, after he had submitted it 18 times to 15 different publishers who refused to publish it because the novel had the word “bloody” and an unappealing mention to King Edward the 7th. Although prosecution did not follow when the book was finally published, it ended up being Joyce’s last experience of censorship. Much controversy surrounded the book, as it includes examples of unappealing human behavior such as simony, prostitution, suicide and drunkenness.

Joyce’s work has been incorporated into many programs. The Waste Land and other literary works that were written by Joyce have been accused of being convoluted and deliberately off and obscure. He incorporates the stream of consciousness. The use of epiphany focuses on uncovering the soul of individuals, classifying this as a modern work. Modernism looks to encourage individualism. Joyce combines stream of consciousness, absurdist drama and mythical parallelism in formal combination that has had an insightful influence on other modernists and future generations of novelists.

T.S. Eliot’s Poems have evident elements of the modernism movement, which made them poems extremely famous during the modernist era. In “The Waste Land”, Eliot shows how modern life made him uncomfortable and distinguished that with medieval attributes in society. This poem can be considered as an important modernist text, as Eliot includes aspects such as the darker side of human nature, self-awareness and introspective into newly found modernism. The main element found in The Waste Land is the dependence on imageries. The poem displays many metaphorical pictures that suggest the feeling of loss, solitude or sadness in modern day man. Although the reader doesn’t understand these images when reading this poem, the narrator guarantees explanation to show the reader how to understand the meaning of the poem from fragmentation. This structure of importance from fragmentation is one of the most valued features of modernism. The poem describes the modern world, or what the narrator describes as “the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history.” The numerous images of deterioration are symbolic of modern life in expression of what it contains and how it resembles how we live today. This poems style reflects modern life and its impact on people’s emotions and actions. Eliot is successful shows this through his style and flow in his poems. He uses many techniques and themes such as imagery, depression, repetition, human isolation and fragmentation. All these techniques help portray and reflect modern life for the reader and its status in real manner.

UKEssays. November 2018. T S Eliot As A Modernist Poet English Literature Essay. [online]. Available from: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-literature/t-s-eliot-as-a-modernist-poet-english-literature-essay.php?vref=1 [Accessed 9 March 2019].

The Waste Land is about the celebration and death of ethnicity. Eliot wrote this poem as a eulogy to the modern world that we live in, which many consider to be abrupt. It was written in a time when singing, dancing and popular culture were the main focus of literature and general happiness for the privileged and less-privileged generation. The Waste Land contains knowledge about the modern world and its truths than any other work during the modernist era. It serves its purpose as evidence to what was happening in human culture during the time it was written.

Part 1 of The Waste Land was called The Burial of the Dead. It began with speaker, Marie. Marie describes specific privileged memories in modern history throughout part 1. But then, the past haunts her in a small way and results in her reading books in her spare time to escape the past. The parts final verses describes a London Bridge covered in fog as a path to the Underworld, where people would “fix his eyes before his feet” and where souls would reunite and recognize each other.

In Part 2, named A Game of Chess the narrator describes the environment of a higher-class woman’s bedroom. They describe the ornate chair, the marble floor, the fireplace, and her jewels and perfume. The narrator then says that the woman is arguing with a man that was assumed to be somewhat of a romantic companion. The woman is explaining to the man that her “nerves are bad tonight”, and this seems to be the result of what had occurred earlier at a bar in London where two women are conversing about a toxic or bad marriage that their friend is experiencing.

Death by Water is the shortest poem part of The Waste Land. The narrator describes conflicting imagery as he describes the life of Renaissance poets with the unappealing canal during the 20th century, which creates an imagery of something beautiful and rich within something the complete opposite. Tiresias (who is the narrator) talks about a modern-day affair between a clerk and a typist. Towards the end of the poem, the narrator informs the reader how brief life is.

The final part of The Waste Land is set in a desolate landscape where it is focused on a group of spiritual anonymous narrators. The first verse’s description of “torchlight on sweaty faces” and an ”agony in stony places” suggests an eerie feeling towards how the poem is going to end. The thunder seems to holds small promise as it is described that the rain never follows behind each clap. The thunder then moves to a jungle where the narrator places meaning behind each clap of thunder. The words are translated to Given, compassion and control which results in the narrator feeling peaceful.

Ulysses’ title was names after Odysseus, who was a Roman Warrior. Ulysses is constantly seeking new adventures and battles throughout the text as he is not happy living the average citizen life. Tennyson says that “Ulysses’ was written under the sense of loss and that all had gone by, but that still life must be fought out to the end.”

During the narrative, the characters move throughout their day, which is set in Dublin. They converse between many people who represent historical and modern figures but also fictional. Ulysses is described to be a source for multiple points of view that analyse the human condition in modern times and how the world has affected them throughout their year of living. This novel is a well-thought-out “lighter and more playful” version of Homer’s The Odyssey.

In chapter Seven, Stephen and Bloom (or Odysseus and Telemachus) meet for the first, although they both know who each other are. Bloom fails to complete an advertising contract, whilst Stephen hands over the letter that the schoolmaster gave to him. The change in plot as newspaper headlines appears to interrupt the straightforward plot of the story. The novels basic purpose is to create a hero that gos against the average hero qualities in earlier novels. Joyce combined his novels with a realist representation with obscure representation. Many adulterous crimes are committed in this novel, one including marital affairs.

Conclusion

Concluding both texts, Ulysses and The Wasteland were both published and released in 1922. Modernism is linked with the First World War, which then resonates with adultery crimes and maleficent crimes. These two authors had new ideas to change the way future novelists would write their poems and novels. They showed “the real” side of the world and how it impacted the people born and grown in it. These modernist novels and poems addressed issues such as the role of women in society, poverty, science verses religion and racism. A lot of people could not handle a novel or poem full of this much truth for the world to see so most of these modernist texts were not published right away and initially failed to be published my multiple publishers.