Saturday, February 20, 2016
Eliot's Waste Land
In class earlier this week, we talked about some images and associations we thought of when we imagined what a "wasteland" was. We learned that Eliot's waste land had to do with solitude/isolation and a lack of civilization, law/order, necessities/water, and fertility/life. I google imaged "wasteland" and here are some of the images that came up:
Though they're all in relatively different settings, I feel that all of these illustrations have an eerie, post-apocalyptic feeling to them. They certainly convey the ideas behind Eliot's waste land--a general lack of life.
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When I think of a "wasteland," the image that comes to mine is somewhere without life. Somewhere so abandoned, grotesque, or isolated that not even earth's most seclusive or independent creatures live there. A waste land can include garbage or filth, or absolutely nothing. One image that comes to mind is the desert from the lion king. (Remember, when simba was dying and timon and Pumba save him.)
This is exactly what I pictured when we talked about the wasteland in class. In class when Ms. King made us dig a bit further into our minds i came up with the image of Captain Jack Sparrow trapped in Davy Jone's locker. Davy Jone's locker is a fictional place where all of the bad pirates/ creatures go when they die. Davy Jone's locker is really just the bottom of the sea but the directors of The Pirates of the Caribbean portrayed it as an empty beach with nothing except Jack Sparrow and his ship. I think of this as the prime example of a wasteland because it's where dead pirates go but it is so big that no one will ever run into each other. You are with others, yet seemingly alone.
Thinking of wastelands, I start to contempleate the factors that lead to such a depletion of life and resources. After seeing these images, an impression of general vagueness and emptiness in the mind of viewers. One of the most common "wastelands" that I think about is a wasteland of a mind. I consider a person who has such ability to achieve greatness with their brain but makes choices that hinder the ability to achieve this, making their mind a wasteland.
Another movie that I think is a perfect example of a waste land is wall-e. Basically it is about a little robot on earth, whose job is to wait for a sign of life and if he finds it he has to report it to the humans who are in a space ship, waiting around and getting fat. The earth he lives on before he finds this life is covered in trash and inhospitable. Humans destroyed the earth with pollution. It is scary to think that we could create a wasteland on our own like that. Hopefully we would realize what we were doing before things got that bad and be able to prevent such a disaster.
Another thing to think about that often affects the wasteland's appearance is the cause of the wasteland. Was it always a wasteland just because the land is inhospitable? Or did it become a wasteland for some reason? For example, a popular modern wasteland can be found in many popular video games - zombies. Often survivors abandon their homes and leave wastelands, but also the the violence and panic causes fires and destruction, leaving behind a wasteland. The irony is that there are still creatures there, except they are the undead, and therefore not living creatures- making it a wasteland. Unlike the original wastelands, they are not barren like a desert but instead full of waste and trash and dead bodies. Fun.
I do think in most wastelands there exists at least a little bit of hope, or I would like to think so. In any movie that involves a wasteland, there is usually an active effort to either restore the wasteland or escape to a better place. I think there is always a chance to make the best out of one of these bad situations. The worst kind of wasteland would definitely be one without hope.
In response to Madison C, WALLE is such a great example of a wasteland. All of the humans move away from the mess that they have created and just leave it behind. The only things that can live there are robots who don't need resources the earth provided before humans ruined it. Another interesting thought is the difference between natural wastelands and the worse man-made wastelands made my our carelessness ( such as pollution) ((or allowing a zombie apocalypse)). Man- made wasteland are always the grossest and most disgusting. We should learn from these wasteland and take better care of our home.
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