The Waste Land


Respected Readers,

As a part of our studies we discussed "The Waste Land" by T.S Eliot. This blog task is a part of our co-curricular activities of our department which is given on this blog

1) What are your views on the following image after reading 'The Waste Land'? Do you think that Eliot is regressive as compared to Nietzche's views? or Has Eliot achieved universality of thought by recalling mytho-historical answer to the contemporary malaise?



Answer:  
The poem “The Waste Land” is based on Christianity and faith in god. Eliot is believer of god, he use so many myth in this poem. T.S.Eliot believes in backward looking which we can see in this poem “The Waste Land”. Here Eliot gave an example from History like Upanishad, Buddhism and Christianity. Here in the poem Eliot presented the past, present, and what modern things are. He was also mentioned symbol like ‘Red Rock’ which Symbolize Christianity. Third part of the poem in which he pointed out the Buddhism and in last part Upanishad Pointed was by Eliot. He also referred to Hanged Man means Jesus Christ. Friedrich Nietzsche Presents the concept of ‘The Ubermensch’, which means the man with superior powers, who justifies the existence of the human race, and also it, means that as a goal for humanity to set for itself. Here we can say that T S Eliot convey the idea of modern man with spiritual drought to sexual perversion. 

2) Prior to the speech, Gustaf Hellström of the Swedish Academy made these remarks:

What are your views regarding these comments? Is it true that giving free vent to the repressed 'primitive instinct' lead us to happy and satisfied life? or do you agree with Eliot's view that 'salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition'?


Answer: 
My view about the poem 'The Waste Land' T.S.Eliot the central theme of the poem is sexual perversion and spiritual degeneration also he mentioned that 'life in death, death in life'. ‘For Freud the most profound cause of confusion lay in the ‘Unbehagen in their culture of modern man ’. Here he mentioned about modern man or we can say that The Waste is a Modern epic. Sigmund Freud and Eliot both are apposite from each other. In this poem he talks about spiritual degradation and sexual perversion. He believes in ‘life in death and death in life’ the cycle of life.

3) Write about allusions to the Indian thoughts in 'The Waste Land'. (Where, How and Why are the Indian thoughts referred?

Answer: 
Here In ‘The Waste Land’ we can see that Eliot use the examples from Indian concept in the fifth part of the poem (What the Thunder Said) like, Upanishads, Buddhism or in last line he used ‘Shanti... Shanti… Shanti.’ Which was used in Upanishads He used an example of river ‘Ganga’ also. As well as he used Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata.

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