Hanging in a Jar
When read for the first time, The Waste Land appears to be a concoction of sorts, a disjointed poem. Lines are written in different languages, narrators change, and the scenes seem disconnected, except for the repeated references to the desert and death. When read over again, however, the pieces become coherent. The Waste Land is categorized as a poem, but when exhibited visually, it appears to be a literary collage. And when standing back and viewing the collage from a distance, a common theme soon emerges. Eliot collects aspects from different cultures, or what he calls cultural memories. These assembled memories depict a lifeless world, in which the barrenness of these scenes speaks of a wasted condition. He concentrates on women, including examples of violence committed against them and their subsequent lack of response, to show how apathetic the world is. The Waste Land is not a social commentary on the plight of women, though, but rather it creates a metaphor for the impotence of the human race to respond to pain through the women's non-reaction to violence. Form often follows function in poetry, and in this case, Eliot uses this notion when he merges seemingly unrelated scenes together that po
However, Eliot includes one example of a woman who takes control and consequently escapes her confinement. Philomel is raped by her sister's husband, Tiresias, and afterwards he slices her tongue to prevent her from talking and locks her in a cottage near his house. Even though she is in a worse situation than the other four women, Philomel does not meet her fate with the same apathy. She has lost her voice, but she manages to find another medium through which to communicate. She weaves her story into a tapestry and gives it to her servant to give to her sister. The two sisters then form a plan of revenge to punish the man who violated her. According to the myth, Philomel was then transformed into a nightingale, and her voice can still be heard through the nightingale's song: "So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale / Filled all the desert with inviolable voice" (100-101). Eliot uses Philomel to show that the violence can be stopped when victims take action against it. She is still alive and able to tell her own story, thereby realizing that she is free to move while the other women remain trapped in a jar. They are incapable of speech, but Philomel's voice fills the desert-a sign that there can still be life among the dead. Turn in the door once and turn once only Eliot composed this poem, focusing on females and their passive reaction to violence, to bring the human race into full awareness of its jar-like imprisonment. These women, taken from different cultures and times, are all victims of sexual abuse. Rather than fighting and demanding justice, though, they ignore the abuse and accept their situation. It is easier to forget the pain than to confront it, because when facing pain, one must relive the experience that caused it. But to ignore pain is to deny life, for one is suppressing feeling, the instrument that allows life to be experienced. An example of this is the hyacinth girl from Part I. The hyacinth girl, called so because her lover gave her hyacinths, is happy when she enters the garden with her lover. But when she leaves the garden, she "[can] not/ Speak, and [her] eyes fail" (38-40). All she sees when "[l]ooking into the heart of light" is "the silence" (41). The hyacinth girl, rather than taking control and challenging her lover, sinks into numbness, and is now neither "[l]iving nor dead" (40). She escapes from the pain, but in the process kills off all ability to feel a
Some common words found in the essay are:
Virgil's Aeneid, Waste Land, Ovid Poi, Eliot Philomel, human race, waste land, Hanging Jar, thames sisters, hyacinth girl, thames sister lies, suspended jar, escaping eliot, drinking alcohol, sister lies, thames sister, speak speak,
Approximate Word count = 1638
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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