Name: Samiya Kagdi
Masters In: English Linguilang
Sem:3(Part-2)
Institution Name/Submitting To: S. B. Gardi, Department of English, MKBU.
Role No: 22
GmailId:samiyakagdi313@gmail.com
Introduction of the topic
The modern epic poem was published in December, 1922 by T. S. Eliot. It is an esoteric poem, which is highly based on myth representations and fragmentations, presented through symbolism, though seems to be tiniest thing, but has a greater significance(As Salman Rushdie said in Imaginary Homelands. Basically archetypal denotes, the suppressed and forgotten contents in psyche. Which seeks outlet in such symbolism and imagism by gathering all unconscious and forgotten things at one place and transforming it into one idea. Which becomes a representation of a specific idea/phenomenon/event and has a functional significance.
What is Archetypal concept
A more or less superficial layer of unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I call it the personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which doesn't derive from personal experience and isn't a personal acquisition but in-born. This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious. I have chosen the term 'collective' because this part of the unconscious isn't individual but universal in contrast to the personal psyche. It has contents and modes of behaviour that are more or less the same everywhere and in all individuals, it is in other words identical in all men and thus constitutes a common psychic substrate of a supra personal nature which is present in everyone of us.
Psychic existence can only be recognized only by the presence of contents that are capable of consciousness. We can therefore speak of an unconscious only in so far as we are able to demonstrate its contents.
Here in this poem, someone named 'I' is suggesting Lil to become smart as his husband is about to come as he is demobbed from the army, who was paying his duty since four years. As once the money was given to LIL to get her some teeth but the self work isn't being done and so when her husband 'Albert' will ask about the money given to her to get some teeth, where it is? How would Lil answer the thing as the emphasization on 'teeth' is given it seems as perhaps Lil's teeth are distorted and so he urged her to get a new set.
It seems as the idea situated before modern era as the suggestion says: That as Albert was since 4 years in Army and now came back, he expects good time from his wife but if it isn't given there are others(seems to be modern idea) and she can get on with.
The whole para. seems to be based on a person's experience of domestic life, who is narrating the whole scene through his lens or can say he himself or herself had experienced the same thing in their respective lives.
If basing this idea on Eliot's framework of this poem, then it seems the person is morally rightful, where what unconsciously at superficial level is felt, is being ingrained and got the universality of this particular idea. Otherwise it also gives the idea of concealment of the sin, which his wife had done till now, but wants to camouflage to further the married life.
Thus morally it is right also and wrong also and also indicates; Unbehagam kind of morality "where on Freud's opinion one should balance between individual and collective consciousness, which should constantly take into account man's primitive instincts. It seems to be slightly differentiated from what the archetypal concept of 'collective unconscious' says. As it is emphasizing on man's basic instincts also.
The para. again says how she has conceived five children and those were aborted and was consoled by chemist that everything will get proper. But someone again asked: "I" why you get married, if you don't want children. It again seems to be an idea against modern times but perhaps through Eliots perspective it is reasonably good and also morally can be justified.
The summer night scene is described where there isn't found testimony of anything, so that one can find the trace but there is no address of such things and so Tiresias is worried about the current sexual perversive situation and as he is suppressed what he can speak or say about and so he says 'Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song', 'Sweet Thames run softly for I speak not loud and long'.
This seems to be an idea, based on action and reaction and as it isn't happening, how there will be any increasement but gradually it will vanish, and we won't be able to find its whereabouts and as 'sexual perversion' is an instrumental element here that suppresses the actual human emotions and the truthful voice.
A domestic life of the typist and the clerk seen through the lens of Tiresias, who claims himself to have 'foresuffered enacted on this same divan and bed'. In this scence sexual activity, though between husband and wife seems to be mere a mechanism, without any love and satisfaction.
The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility.
(The Diary of Anais Nin published in 1914)
As this quote speak for puritanism, where hypocrisy, perversion, sterility and fear were practised. Rather than making men free, they were censored and if it is related here then before modernism, victorianism was known for rigidity, religion, stubbornity and living with pessimism, it was in aftermath with the advent of Shaw that people rejected such dogmatisms and question every form of art, irrespective of any particular field and so the enlightenment came in the form of the cleansing the sins through spiritual sterility. As it is rightly prescribed in this poem; under the fire sermon section that one should struggle through the fire, for purgation otherwise the sins won't get cleansed.
Under death by water, Jean Verdenal, his friend's name is mentioned as Phlebas, who is dead by water and it is claimed that this part of the poem it deeply affected by this incident happened in 1915 in war, where his friend was killed.
Gentile and Jew are being addressed as responsible for turning the wheel and looking to the windward and they are challenged by Phlebas who was once tall and handsome.
As the rock, the place without water, sweat is dry such phrases are denoting "death in life" and water, death by water, solitude, denote "life in death" along with crucification of Jesus Christ(as a hanged man). These two ideas subsequently which denote sexual perversion and spiritual sterility takes the phrases introduced by Cleanth Brooks.
The summer is known for providing warmth through the sunlight. In this above paragraph, three seasons are mingled, while the both seasons; summer and rainy are followed by winter season(that is dead). At first through romance, she is led astray through indulging herself in perversion of sexual promiscuity but as it didn't serve any purpose, and being futile, the attempts are dead. Rather it would have been good, if they had got married and with one another's love, atleast have served the purpose of marriage in form of sexual reproduction but here it is exessiveness.
The first part of the wasteland: The Burial of the Dead, where the April month is described as "cruellest month" breeding lilacs out of the dead land, where land is associated with memory and lilacs with desire. But as the land is already dead, how it will have any desire to grow something out of the land. When already many things as unusual is happening in and around, how stirring of spring rain, will stir the dull roots of the land, which is already dead. In another part from 'fifth line' winter is described as keeping warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow. Here in this above paragraph 'dried tubers' phrase is taken, to suggest 'sexual reproduction' in context of this poem. While in general it suggest, a mere large structure, which serves as an organ to provide nutrients to other plants(perennation) especially in winter for survival of the plants.
Consequently it is followed by the fire sermon and what the thunder said, where respectively it is suggesting purgation and then peace, by imbibing three ways for living life; Datta, dayadhvam and damyatta.
Intertwined Ideas with archetypal reading
As archetypal reading by Karl Jung says that somewhere a superficial layer of unconscious, that is personal, therefore a deeper layer and which is innate, not based on personal experience and personal acquisition but something which serves universality not regarding personal psyche. Though the poem is based on 'the golden bough' comparative religion concept by James Frazer(a Scottish thinker) but it seems that Eliot, in his days, would have visualize such happenings of his time as well as of other times as an outsider, where you see it through the lens of wholeness.
For Example: Tiresias in The wasteland, who is claimed for being providing with the substance of poem, and alluded as he himself is Eliot. Who sees the whole scene of the typist and the clerk and confesses that he had foresuffered such things, so he knew. How it can be seen through the outsider..Where he is evaluating the actions, responses and mechanisms out of the sight and that is actually giving reader an insight of the weird happenings, and its actions taken as a follow up.
It seems as it is aptly described by the writer, and may be as this poem has some connection with poet's personal life, where his own wife(Vivienne Haigh Wood) was involved with Russel and though envious and tormented, due to impotency can't say anything but have to look by being a mute spectator.
Thus this is reflected in the poem, where one can get an idea that not only prostitutes have such roles to play, but sometimes someone though being reputed, indulge themselves by camouflaging. Here atleast prostitutes are defined in explicit manner but how such characters can be defined and read in such context as it seems that his wife was more indulged in indecent activities.
Thus in this manner the archetypal image is generated in collective unconscious and surfaces when appropriating events, situations, circumstances arises. This happens through reading as well as personal experience also, while remains superficial not in-depth and take the form of deep layer, which is progressing underneath somewhere, and from day to day experiences it comes out, recontextulizing something, prevailing in present.
Conclusion
Hence something which is confronted in early days, keeps on surfacing superficially in real adventures of life and when it comes to shape that thought, it will take that very thing as a base for creating something. It is based on impressions, which you have imbibed, in an entire discourse of life, but the tendency of maturity differs. While it also happens that which thoughts are in an immature state, will gradually transform into mature understanding.
WORKS CITED
Eliot, S. Thomas. "The Modernist Novel: The Wasteland." 1922.
{Adopted references from the poem
The Burial of the dead
The game of chess
The fire sermon
Death by water
What the thunder said}
Freud, Sigmund. "Ubehegam".
Neitsche, Freidrich. "Ubermensch".
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