Monday, February 21, 2011
Mistletoe
I found our discussion today about mistletoe in connection to Eliot's character, Lil, quite interesting. As we discussed Lil's use of medication to trigger an abortion, we mentioned that mistletoe was once used for this purpose. I decided to do some research to determine why the plant has this effect. I discovered that the flower, fruit, leaf, and stem of mistletoe can sometimes be used as medication. However, if ingested by a pregnant woman, the plant can induce abortion as it causes uterine contractions. As we also brought up in class, mistletoe is the plant known as "The Golden Bough." Frazer wrote a study on mythology and religion with this title, which Eliot consistently alludes to in the poem. Do you all think Eliot intentionally alludes to "The Golden Bough" by including the story of Lil's abortion remedy in the poem?
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I think that this is such an interesting point. I feel that as we have read Eliot, we have learned that he alludes to so many works of literature that there is a definite possibility that his allusion to "The Golden Bough" could be connected to Lil's abortion remedy. "The Wasteland" contains so many layers of meaning that I think this could possibly be a very deep layer of the poem...but then again you never know with Eliot.
Eliot is a complex man. I wouldn't put it past him to allude to "The Golden Bough" in addition to using the mistletoe idea as an abortion aid. In "The Wasteland", Eliot has many allusions that integrate each other. He also includes irony and relationships centering around sex. The irony of "The Golden Bough" as an essay on religion/magic/science and also mistletoe which has abortive capabilities and the fact that mistletoe is used during Christmas time to bring people together and kiss under it is baffling. Knowing how intense and elitist Eliot is, it's quite possible he knew of all these connections and included them hoping intelligent readers, like our Humanities class, would discover the multiplicity of the meaning of the mistletoe.
I definitely think Eliot refers to the Golden Bough when he mentions "mistletoe." After reading Julia's blog about birth control, I had a new understanding of how harshly abortion advocacy was treated in the 1920s. Women took extreme measures for abortions because they couldn't acquire proper treatment. I think the golden bough reference raises the question of whether "spirit" or "magic" is a part of the life that could be aborted by the mistletoe.
I don't actually think mistletoe would be regarded by Frazer as "magic" but actually rather as science because it does not fail at its intended object, to induce a pregnancy. Its mechanism of action also intrigues me because it is very similar to the mechanism of action of the second of two pills used in today's medical abortions. The first pill essentially inhibits the embryo from continued growth by cutting off nutrients and inhibiting DNA synthesis. The second pill, which is similar to how mistletoe causes an abortion, also causes uterine contractions. This tricks the body into believing labor has been induced and expels the embryonic content that is no longer viable. However, in excessive quantities, this pill can be poisonous. It attacks the foreign embryonic cells as if they were cancer cells that arise from the self but differ slightly on the membrane protein coating. This just shows that although medicine is often regarded as cutting edge and modern, it's rather similar to medicine from nearly a century ago. There's a lot to be said for herbal medication research, which has become strikingly popular lately.
Mistletoe is definitely connected to Frazer's "The Golden Bough." As I said in class, the real golden bough from Vergil's Aeneid is none other than mistletoe growing in a tree. The Romans revered mistletoe; they believed that it had to have magical properties because of its ability to grow during the dead of winter. Because of its miraculous growth during a season of death, mistletoe was a symbol of eternal fertility. Eliot therefore uses mistletoe in two very different ways, setting up a dichotomy within one image. One cannot help but think that mistletoe's double meaning is ironic.
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