Silly Pericles Lewis

While I thoroughly enjoyed most parts of Lewis's essay on The Waste Land, there was one part of his essay that bothered me: the role of the speaker versus the role of voices. If there are multiple voices, can there be a single speaker? And if there is a single speaker, wouldn't that speaker have to be a man or woman, thereby breaking the speaker's neutrality on the topic of sex? The answer is yes, unless the person is Tiresias. I find that multiple voices necessarily means that there are multiple speakers, which is mentioned, but not discussed sufficiently on page eight. But on the bottom of page four Pericles specifically refers to the speaker as a male "[...] Eliot's speaker seems to align himself [...]". Well, if the speaker is a male, then Eliot's poem is a sexist, and possibly misogynistic piece of work. I fail to fully believe that Eliot's piece is either. The typist in The Wasteland is an independent, albeit mechanic, woman. What a progression from the 18th century depictions of women as beautiful objects to be written about for their superficial beauty. Eliot breaks away from the 19th century depiction of women in the workplace or at home tending for others by depicting a single, hardworking woman at home-an under-represented population in literature. Eliot is writing about a hardworking woman just as he would about a hardworking man. The typist is making her own living, eating "tuna from a can", airing her dirty laundry for whoever visits to see because she simply doesn't have enough time to do everything. We see the same pattern in the lady who is having an abortion. While she is currently half dependent on her husband, she wants to become independent from her husband and seems to revel in the idea of breaking free from the bonds of marriage.  So Pericles Lewis, I challenge that the Wasteland's speaker must be impartial to the sexes, but involved in their "chess game". The speaker of Eliot's Wasteland, in my mind, must be Tiresias who is sort of a hermaphrodite.

Vivenne Eliot as inspiration for female characters

After talking about Eliot's personal biography today, I wondered if his depictions of women were influenced by his unhappy marriage to Vivenne Haigh-Wood Eliot. Some critics consider her to be a sort of "femme-fatale" character that seduced Eliot in a turbulent and disastrous marriage. Her and Eliot met while she was working as a governess in Cambridge and were married 3 months later. They were married until her death in 1947, but her physical and mental illnesses plagued their relationship during the entirety of their marriage. Eliot arranged for a formal separation after learning of her affair with philosopher Bertrand Russell. Five years later she was committed to an asylum. I feel that she influenced the female characters in the Waste Land, who are often depicted as apathetic temptresses. Many of the females are also characterized by their inability to maintain meaningful connections with men and barrenness. Perhaps this obsession with fertility was relevant due to the fact that Vivenne suffered from heavy, irregular menstruation that often impeded her daily life and sexual relations. Eliot's sister-in-law Theresa once said, "Vivienne ruined Tom as a man, but she made him as a poet."

Should it really be called Modernism?

I find it interesting that this literary movement is called Modernism, as most modernist writers seemed to desire a rehashing of old cultural themes and motifs. The Modernists did not really favor modernization nor the new problems it brought to society. For example, World War I seemed to just bring chaos and havoc to countries world wide, along with death and other horrible atrocities that accompany war. The Modernist tried to aliens and fragment the parts of society they opposed, which is seen in Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decourm Est". In this poem Owen attacks the common misconception of the heroism in connection with waging war and how it's not as heroic as the "old men" say it is, as the only reason they want war is for their own economic and pitiful benefits. 

The Lady on the Throne

We open up 'A Game of Chess' with the lady, who sits upon the chair. Remember how she's apparently talking to someone but isn't receiving any answer? Well, I might have a theory regarding this scene, one that supports my response post to Tejas' thread "Chaos" (I suggest you read that one first). I recall in class that we noted that this lady sounded paranoid, definitely desperate. We established that she seeks some sort of connection with whoever she's vainly yelling to. My take on this is that she is on the way to falling into her own spiritual wasteland, if not already in or close to one. Consider that she isn't receiving a response, logically suggesting that in the future, she will recognize the futility in wasting her breath and eventually cease both her speech and simultaneously a subconscious attempt to reach out for some sort of connection. With her motivation gone, she inevitably becomes an empty shell, much in the sense like we considered the Underground Man to be. Secondly, I want to point out the fact that at the very end she resorts to a new strategy of trying to talk to whoever refuses to answer her. Her strategy goes from a question to an insult, hoping to provoke a response. This strategy falls even with the desperate nature we've classified her with. Essentially she lowers her standards. She stops requesting specific responses through questions and begins simply wanting a response (any kind of response) through insults. Not only does this lowering of standards attribute to a sort of degeneration we see common throughout the rest of the poem as it describes our slow decay towards a wasteland, but her desperation can be likened to a sort of delusion, in that logically her new method to illicit a response (an insult) has the risk of also driving the other individual away. It's definitely a stretch, but delusion is pretty similar to the disorientation we associate with the wasteland Elliot presents.

Allusions in The Waste Land

We all know that T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is full of historical allusions, from Roman history, to medieval history, to the events of his day. The allusions he uses usually have so many meanings which adds to the confusion caused by his writings  There are so many ways that one can interpret these allusions, which emphasizes the fact that he wants the reader to interpret the poem for themselves.There are so many ways to look at all of these things. Take the tarot cards as an example. One could look at it as a comment on the Grail myth and the fact that society needs its "Perceval" to heal the Fisher king (the man with three staves), or one could look at it as a comment on Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow. Both ways provide meaning, but that meaning is different in each case. Eliot fills his poem with so many other allusions and he leaves it up to the reader to make his/her own interpretation, adding to the timelessness of the poem.

Chaos

T.S. Elliot's "The Waste Land" is hard to understand at times and can even be incoherent given the extensive number of jumps to different topics. I understand that this is suppose to mimic the stream of consciousness style of writing that many modernist used, but I think that it can also represent that chaos theme present in the 20th century during World War I. People were in mass confusion with the amount of warfare present and began to wonder about the source of all the chaos. Elliot's writing style follows a similar chaotic theme in accordance with the prominent feelings of the time. 

Chess is a game of logic

To continue our class discussion today, I thought another reason that Elliot named the second section of his Waste Land "A Game of Chess."  Chess is a game of logic.  Modernists like Elliot focused on logic and stressed getting away from nature and spiritual stuff in Romanticism.  Naming a section after chess really helps to show TS Elliot's intentions of making his poem no nonsense and to the point like modernists strived for.  Like we said earlier, "A Game of Chess" was also the name of a play in the 1600s.  Modernists used classic literature in their work because of the reason and logic that they got out of it.  Chess in many ways stands as a symbol for reason and logic.  It is a game that requires skill and strategy to succeed in which makes it perfect for T.S. Elliot to use in Waste Land.