Saturday, February 4, 2017
Tarot Cards
Eliot's use of tarot cards in The Wasteland is really interesting. I think it is somewhat strange that he used them because it seems really obscure to the average reader, but this may have been different at the time. Nonetheless, tarot cards are a way to tell the future in a very concise way using symbols. It could also be seen as against Christianity, which is a common thing in modernist writing. Below are the cards used in The Wasteland.
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3 comments:
I really like the concept of fortune telling and the tarot cards. It brings up a unique aspect of the future and whether or not people would want to know what lies ahead for them in life. Often times, people claim they would want to know their future, but for me personally, I'd rather live life day by day.
Tarot cards are incredibly sacriligious to Christians. In Christianity, the only ones who have the power to see the future are god and the prophets who god has given this gift to. Saying that a deck of cards, an inanimate object, gives someone the ability to see the future would be disrespectful because it would, in a way compare the cards to god. Further, the majority of his readership is probably Christian, so it is very odd that he would use obscure symbolism and references to tarot cards that few people would understand.
I agree that Tarot cards act as a means of rejecting religion such as Christianity. Religion was less prominent during this time because of advances in technology that lead people to praise science instead of religion. Also, war lead people to reject the things they once found comfort in such as religion an government an they looked towards other mediums. Tarot cards jus became another medium in which people placed the trust they had lost for religion.
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