Introduction:
T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is divided into five parts The Burial of the Dead, A Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death by Water, and What the Thunder Said. The poem is written in a way that it seems, we are looking at the shattered mirror. Eliot has used a lot of references from the various cultures and myths, that he had read throughout his life.
The title of the poem is very clear, The Waste Land. Eliot made this very clear that the poem is going to talk about some ‘Waste Land’ and the Waste Land here is ‘The West’ or the western society. As Eliot believes, in modern times western society was rotting and as a result, it became the ‘Waste Land’.
This five-part poem is made up of a collage and it seems that we are looking at the shattered mirror. The shattered image reflects the same image, but the poem is showing us many things out of the five images. If we look at the thing deeply then we can say that Eliot is trying to show the same thing by these broken pieces. It is showing the brokenness and isolation of modern life. The other parts of the poem are showing death and rebirth, sex, perverseness, lust, religion, spirituality, nihilism, and the past.
1) What are your views on the following image after reading 'The Waste Land'? Do you think that Eliot is regressive as compared to Nietzsche's views? or Has Eliot achieved universality of thought by recalling mytho-historical answer to the contemporary malaise?
Eliot is using the myths of various cultures in The Waste Land. He believes that western society is so much involved in materialism and perverseness and lust, so he recalls myths and histories like Upanishad, Buddhism, and Christianity hoping that these moral stories will bring a change into the world. We can say that Eliot is a regressive and backwards-looking man who is trying to find the solution to the contemporary malaise in the past. Upanishad, Buddhism, Christianity and many such religious books and stories were written in the past for their time, where there could be more malaises that they had observed and to remove that they came up with these myths. These myths were supposed to remove that rot, but they failed to do so that is why we are still suffering from the same problems. That means roughly speaking, there is no guarantee that Eliot’s regressive and backward point of view is going to work. Because it will be very hard to argue with the regressive thought if the person is not religiously blind.
Friedrich Nietzsche is the opposite of Eliot. Nietzsche gave the concept of Übermensch (Superman) in “Also sprach Zarathustra” (1883-1885). According to Nietzsche, “Superman is an individual who has surpassed both the Christian morals and values of humanity and transcends pure rationality”. At the first glance, it seems that Nietzsche is also talking about his mythical creature than how different it is from Eliot?
Well, in this case, the answer is very simple Unlike Eliot Nietzsche believed that ‘God is Dead’ he thought that it was an old-fashioned idea of a less civilized society. Superman is beyond God and evil, he recognizes the morality that only exists concerning human beings. Nietzsche believed that the ‘Death of God’ led to Christianity and Christianity is an “evil-doer” and a “slave driver” which seeks to “break every will to power.” Christian morality was an obstacle to progress.
According to Russell: “The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms.”
Nietzsche believed that life ought to be lived without any religious faith. As he said: “He who has given himself his law, lives most pleasantly; the freeman thinks pleasantest thoughts because he does not fear their consequences; there exists no greater contrast than between what we do out of pure joy and what we do only as a duty. Duty! obligation! (legalism!). Take now thyself as thou art!”
So, I can say that Eliot is regressive compared to the views of Nietzsche.
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