Theme of Technology and Modernity in 'TheWaste Land'
Assignment
Name: Asha R. Dhedhi
Roll no: 02 (Two)
Semester: 03 (Part-2)
Year: 2020-2021
Paper No.: 9
Paper: The Modernist Literature
Enrollment No:
2069108420200010
Email ID:
ashadhedhi1806@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English
Introduction
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot is known as a Modern Epic poem first published in 1922. Written after the First World War emphasis on the aftermath effects of first world war. The poem centered around the emptiness and disorganisation prevailed in society after the First world war. In order to highlight all these things Eliot uses different styles and techniques of writing including Images, Symbolism, Christianity, Hindu Philosophy, Use of mythology and also give modern impact with the use of technological symbols, by portraying industrialization and downfall of western civilization with the themes of Spiritual Degradation and Sexual Perversion.
"Eliot uses the "The Waste Land" to draw a connection between the mechanisation and technological advancement in everyday life and the degradation of Human dignity."
(Perry Schein)
So, In this way here in The Waste land Eliot juxtaposes the two different worlds one is Modern world with Technology and Industrial advancement and one is Mythological world where technology is not developed yet. And this intermingling of two, past and present gives unique Identity to poetry. And also a linking string between the fragmented events of the poem. So, Let's analyse how the theme of technological advancement is used in the poem.
Lack of Order in Society: Technology
The basic structure of the poem also highlights the theme of Fragmented Society within fragmented events and scenes. And the major responsible factor behind this chaotic world is technology. One critic Juan A. Suarez argues that in his style of writing Eliot tries to mimic the sound recorder.
“Eliot’s poem itself is based on zapping through a sort of prerecorded literary archive which seems to be kept on the air at different frequencies”
(Juan A. Suarez, 757)
If we listen to various pre recorded sounds then it seems like that all sounds are mingled together to give artistic effects in the same manner. Eliot chose fragmented scenes from past and present and put them in order to create aesthetic effects. So, The structure of the poem is rooted in the machine.
In a modern era technology plays a vital role. And the same argument given by Eliot in his poem is that 'Technology subverting the established social order'. And the frequencies of high law started coming into unordered society one by one without any clear difference. So, The poem lacks an organized pattern and along with that he portrays the lack of order in Society also. As Suarez notes down….
“Once the channels are open they carry any and all sounds.”
(Juan A. Soarez, 764)
Life with Technology and Without Technology
The poem The Waste Land is divided into Five parts…
- The Burial of the Dead
- A Game of Chess
- The Fire Sermon
- Death by Water
- What the Thunder Said
Eliot seems to represent conventional or traditional life of living along with modern life. This can be observed through the images used by him in the first part of the poem in "The Burial of the Dead" and the images used in other parts of the poem. In the first part Eliot gives images related to War and says War can be seen as a concrete wall between past and present. And said life before war is like…
"Read, much of the night, and go south in the winter"(286)
(From The Waste Land)
They used to decide their further step in life and meaning of their life in Madame Sosotris's cards and sometimes derive life lessons from mythology and classical tells. And the life in the past is contrasted with the Modern way of living where we can see mechanised and modernised world. Examples of Modern life can be seen in the second part 'A Game of Chess' in the character of Women at pub and typist character in 'The Fire Sermon.'
The typist home at teatime,
clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove,
and lays out food in tins.
(From 'The Waste Land')
So, Eliot makes a comparison between leisure class who used to spend their vacations in Mountain in the First part while here in the modern world the whole life of a typist is mechanised and ordered around her mechanical job. Her identity itself is centred around her mechanical work. Everyone used to call her a typist because of the Industrial Revolution eroding the sense of purpose and sense of living in life.
A typist is named metonymically
for the machine she tends,
So merged with it, in fact she
is called typist even at home.
(Michael North, 98)
Human Engine-Mechanized life in 'The Fire Sermon'
Throughout the third part which 'The Fire Sermon' Eliot tries to show degrading effects of industrialization and mechanisation. We can see the interesting example of showing human beings as 'Human Engines' in the introductory part of Tiresias….
"At the violet hour,
When the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk,
When the Human Engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting."
(From 'The Fire Sermon')
So, Here Eliot portrays the boring life in the world of machineries where everything is on time and human beings also become human Engine with Machine Engine. And Suarez called it "Automatism and Machine Conditioning."
Tiresias: The Human Engine
Tiresias is the interlink between the past and present, the character of Tiresias is a character with whom every event is connected. He is an ominous observer, who records every past and present human consciousness. So, Tiresias plays a very important role in the poem as an objective observer.
His mythological transgender allows him to relate with female as well as male both. In a similar way he is also interlink between past and present allow him to experience both Traditional world And Mode to n world. The repeated use of a throbbing link for Tiresias connects him with the Human Engine…
The first(throbbing) stresses the mechanicalness of the alienated 'Human Engine' which exists in terms of its parts, while the second (throbbing) reinvents the Human Engine with throbbing humanity.
(Gareth Reeves)
So, This is how the character of Tiresias is connected with modern human condition in the poem. Who stands for Modern Man as an Human Engine.
Typist and Clerk - Modern Man Relationship
The typist is automatic in her way of living which symbolizes loss of meaning in the modern world. North remarked that "The typist is horrifying both because she is reduced by the conditions of labor to a mere part and because she is infinitely multiple."
By showing one character, and by giving few details regarding the typist it is possible that Eliot wants to show the degradation of all women in society. Eliot also further makes a distinction between the ways of living in the past and in a modern life.
Typists represent modern women in the same manner Clerk represents Modern Man from lower middle working class people. With the representation of these both characters Eliot wants emphasis that in a Modern World Humanity is at declining end. It also shows that in Modern Life there is no essence to living, everyone is living for the sake of living.
"The typist is automatic in her job
and in her love making."
(Grover Smith)
So, Within the portrayal of Typist and Clerk Eliot wants to convey that Modern man and woman are living their lives like machines. And this is not only one case but everyday happening in modern cities. Character of Typist is also not interested in having sex or making love. So, her indifferent attitude towards love life shows the lack of purpose in life. It also shows that how in Modern World relationships are also mechanised which can be tied within a few days and end within a few hours. This theme can be seen more clearly in the following lines….
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover,
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass;
"Well now that's done: and I am glad it's over."
When a lovely woman stoops to folly and Paces about her room again, alone, She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, and puts a record on the gramophone."
(From 'The Fire Sermon')
Unreal City - Modernity
The image of an unreal city is again and again used in the poem. By using 'Unreal' Eliot is trying to make a differentiation between Traditional world and Modern World where humanity and spirituality is degrading.
"Unreal City,
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air,
Falling Tower,
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria,
Vienna London, Unreal"
(From The Waste Land)
So, Eliot uses the word 'Unreal' to demonstrate a modern world which is full of mechanisation and fake.
Conclusion
So, These are some of the examples and explanations of how Eliot uses Modernity to portray contemporary world. He uses technology to demonstrate how the modern world is mechanised because of the invention of technology in the Modern era. Eliot tries to demonstrate decay and degradation of the modern world because of technology and the Industrial Revolution, within which everything is bound by time and people do not have time for each other or sometimes not for themselves also.
References
- Eliot, T.S. “The Waste Land.” Anthology of Modern American Poetry. Ed. Cary Nelson. NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. Accessed: 5 December 2020.
- Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land.
- North, Michael. The Political Aesthetic of Yeats, Eliot, and Pound. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Accessed: 5 December, 2020.
- Reeves, Gareth. T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. NY: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994.
- Smith, Grover. The Waste Land. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983.
- Suárez, Juan A. “T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, the Gramophone, and the Modernist
- Discourse Network.” New Literary History 32 (2001): 747–768.
Good work 👍👍
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