Theme of Disillusionment in Wasteland
Introduction
"The Wasteland", by T.S. Eliot, is widely regarded as "one of the most important poems of the 20th century" and the central text in modernist poetry. The Wasteland is known not only for its probing subject matter but also its radical departure from traditional poetic style and structure, incorporating historical and literary allusions as well as unconventional use of language. The wasteland is one of the most outstanding poems of the twentieth century. It has been hailed as Eliot's masterpiece - the supreme triumph of the poetic are in modern times.
The Wasteland expresses with great power the disenchantment, disillusionment, and disgust of the period after World War I. In a series of vignettes, loosely linked by the legend of the search for the Grail, it portrays a sterile world of panicky fears and barren lusts, and of human beings writing for some sign or promise of redemption.
The three examples by which Eliot expresses the disillusionment of the 'lost generation" in The Wasteland, these being:
1. Domestic Vignettes
2. Linguistic Intrusion
3.Sexual Failure or 'Lack'
1. Domestic Vignettes
In The Wasteland, Eliot meshes together scenes of the apocalyptic stagnation of the modern world with fragmented domestic vignettes in such a way as to unsettle the reader. The most notable of these vignettes is found in part 2 of the poem, "A Game of Chess". Having open the poem with the depiction of an almost dystopian London, 'unreal city', Eliot zooms into the more intimate scene of a pub or a bar in which two women are gossiping. Their discourse is one firmly inundated with working class colloquialisms, the tone and personality of the women coming across vividly,
'...I said -
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself..."
There dialogue is domestic in its recognisability, the women appearing almost as caricatures in the sense of similarity they induce. They represent the ''every (wo) man" and would not seem out of place in most pubs in Britain. Yet this picture of domesticity is constantly interrupted by the refrain 'HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME'. While this too may be read as another domestic image, referencing the British public tradition of 'last orders', its presence serves an ulterior purpose. It is a paradoxical image. On the one hand, its repetitious intrusion cultivates an uneasy, uncanny feeling to the poem that becomes almost prophetic. 'ITS TIME' gives the reader the impression of something approaching, something unseen, as if this short domestic vignette sits unknowingly on the brink of something new. This implies movement, an approach. At the same time, the image is also one of the stagnation. Its reputation conveys a sense of circularity as well as uneasiness. Reputation is believed to be a typical trait of the 'uncanny' as the repeated object becomes both familiar and, due to the absence of apparent cause unknown. By being in capitalised letters and entirely without punctuation, the phrase induces a panicked feeling and, paired with the time constrain it order, creates a sense of confinement and claustrophobia. The tension between the contradictory images of constraint and stasis with the prophecy
of impending doom place within an intimate moment of domesticity helps to show the pervasiveness and permeation of disillusionment seeping into all aspects of post-war society. It is not just the grand apocalyptic scale of the 'unreal city' of London that it affects, it infiltrates even the banality of everyday life.
2. Linguistic intrusion
Eliot suffuses poem with the frequent intrusion of foreign languages and sayings, the purpose of which has caused much debate. Take, for instance, the closing stanza of the poem:
'London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Pois'ascose nen foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chidon- O swallow swallow Le Prince d' Aquitaine a'la
tour abolie
These fragments I have showed against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhavam. Damyata
Shanti shanti shanti. '
By including an array of languages, Eliot ensures that the reader is never able to fully familarise themselves with the poem - there will always be some form of disconnect during these moments of linguistic intrusion. Language, our speech is an aspect of our culture with which we are most familiar. By disrupting our understanding with foreign words, Eliot denies us that intimacy with the text and so disorientates the reader. This orientation is a deliberate ploy by Eliot, as shown through the conflation of languages in the above passage. Sanskrit and Italian intermingle within English nursery rhyme, this allowing a unity of meaning for understanding. 'Shanti Shanti Shanti' translates as a mantra for peace which is at or with the apocalyptic image of London Bridge falling down. Eliot therefore uses language to displays the reader and portray an instability of unified meaning reminiscent of the fractured cultural identity of Britain following the First World War.
3. Sexual failure and 'lack'
The instances and imagery of sexual failure within The Wasteland may be seen to illustrate the disengagement and stagnation in society experienced by Eliot and the 'lost generation'. The gossiping women from a 'Game of Chess' discuss a mutual friend who has had and abortion and who blames her depleted appearance on 'them pills (she) took to bring it off'. Successful intercourse is a mode of reproduction, is created or so is representative of progress. In a world which exist in stasis, where there is an absence of growth, there is an apparent impotency not just to characters but to society in general. Sexual failure or impotency can also be defined in terms of absence or lack. An abortion being the forced eradication of the foetus, the society suffers the absence of new life which, within the extended metaphor of progress, portrays a world still reeling from the devastation of World War I, not yet moving onwards. The absence is manifested by the physical gaps in the text of the poem, such as the end of the 'Fire Sermon', which includes a line that simply reads
'la la. '
As such, the various structure of The Waste Land mirrors both the absence of progress and also of meaning that typically characterizes the society portrayed by the writers of the 'lost generation'.
1. Domestic Vignettes
2. Linguistic Intrusion
3.Sexual Failure or 'Lack'
1. Domestic Vignettes
In The Wasteland, Eliot meshes together scenes of the apocalyptic stagnation of the modern world with fragmented domestic vignettes in such a way as to unsettle the reader. The most notable of these vignettes is found in part 2 of the poem, "A Game of Chess". Having open the poem with the depiction of an almost dystopian London, 'unreal city', Eliot zooms into the more intimate scene of a pub or a bar in which two women are gossiping. Their discourse is one firmly inundated with working class colloquialisms, the tone and personality of the women coming across vividly,
'...I said -
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself..."
There dialogue is domestic in its recognisability, the women appearing almost as caricatures in the sense of similarity they induce. They represent the ''every (wo) man" and would not seem out of place in most pubs in Britain. Yet this picture of domesticity is constantly interrupted by the refrain 'HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME'. While this too may be read as another domestic image, referencing the British public tradition of 'last orders', its presence serves an ulterior purpose. It is a paradoxical image. On the one hand, its repetitious intrusion cultivates an uneasy, uncanny feeling to the poem that becomes almost prophetic. 'ITS TIME' gives the reader the impression of something approaching, something unseen, as if this short domestic vignette sits unknowingly on the brink of something new. This implies movement, an approach. At the same time, the image is also one of the stagnation. Its reputation conveys a sense of circularity as well as uneasiness. Reputation is believed to be a typical trait of the 'uncanny' as the repeated object becomes both familiar and, due to the absence of apparent cause unknown. By being in capitalised letters and entirely without punctuation, the phrase induces a panicked feeling and, paired with the time constrain it order, creates a sense of confinement and claustrophobia. The tension between the contradictory images of constraint and stasis with the prophecy
of impending doom place within an intimate moment of domesticity helps to show the pervasiveness and permeation of disillusionment seeping into all aspects of post-war society. It is not just the grand apocalyptic scale of the 'unreal city' of London that it affects, it infiltrates even the banality of everyday life.
2. Linguistic intrusion
Eliot suffuses poem with the frequent intrusion of foreign languages and sayings, the purpose of which has caused much debate. Take, for instance, the closing stanza of the poem:
'London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Pois'ascose nen foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chidon- O swallow swallow Le Prince d' Aquitaine a'la
tour abolie
These fragments I have showed against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhavam. Damyata
Shanti shanti shanti. '
By including an array of languages, Eliot ensures that the reader is never able to fully familarise themselves with the poem - there will always be some form of disconnect during these moments of linguistic intrusion. Language, our speech is an aspect of our culture with which we are most familiar. By disrupting our understanding with foreign words, Eliot denies us that intimacy with the text and so disorientates the reader. This orientation is a deliberate ploy by Eliot, as shown through the conflation of languages in the above passage. Sanskrit and Italian intermingle within English nursery rhyme, this allowing a unity of meaning for understanding. 'Shanti Shanti Shanti' translates as a mantra for peace which is at or with the apocalyptic image of London Bridge falling down. Eliot therefore uses language to displays the reader and portray an instability of unified meaning reminiscent of the fractured cultural identity of Britain following the First World War.
3. Sexual failure and 'lack'
The instances and imagery of sexual failure within The Wasteland may be seen to illustrate the disengagement and stagnation in society experienced by Eliot and the 'lost generation'. The gossiping women from a 'Game of Chess' discuss a mutual friend who has had and abortion and who blames her depleted appearance on 'them pills (she) took to bring it off'. Successful intercourse is a mode of reproduction, is created or so is representative of progress. In a world which exist in stasis, where there is an absence of growth, there is an apparent impotency not just to characters but to society in general. Sexual failure or impotency can also be defined in terms of absence or lack. An abortion being the forced eradication of the foetus, the society suffers the absence of new life which, within the extended metaphor of progress, portrays a world still reeling from the devastation of World War I, not yet moving onwards. The absence is manifested by the physical gaps in the text of the poem, such as the end of the 'Fire Sermon', which includes a line that simply reads
'la la. '
As such, the various structure of The Waste Land mirrors both the absence of progress and also of meaning that typically characterizes the society portrayed by the writers of the 'lost generation'.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, 'The Waste Land' has been commented by F. R. Lewis as "vision of dissolution and spiritual drought". The theme of disillusionment indicates the current state of affairs of modern society, especially the post World War I of Europe in which he lived. Thus he illustrates this pervasive sense of disillusionment in several ways, the most notable of which is reference to joyless sex, such as example of Philomel, upon whom sex is forced. Further loss of faith and moral values, monotony of life and useless war in various parts of the world also add to the disillusionment of the modern man.
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