Superficiality in the poem the wasteland.

superficiality in the wasteland

The Wasteland is concerned with the 'disillusionment of a generation'. The poem was written in the early 1920's, a time of abject poverty, heightening unemployment and much devastation unresolved from the end of WW1 in 1918. Despite this, or because of it, people made a conscientious effort to enjoy themselves. In doing so they lost their direction, their beliefs and their individuality. They were victims of the class system which maintained a system of privilege, snobbery and distrust. Advances in machinery brought new products onto the market, like cars, but the people were so disillusioned with the social turmoil caused by four years of war, that even the glamour of new possessions could not fill the spiritual and emotional void left by the war. The consciousness of a nation had been battered into submission by the horrors of the first world war that people now were living a shell of what was once life. People went through the motions of life but there was no feeling just a mechanical existence. This kind of surface existence, the inability to see beyond the obvious, is portrayed throughout the Wasteland. The Wasteland is a soulless picture of a world deprived of fertility. Everything has become sterile in this barren landscape, people have nowhere left to look but to the outer shell because the inside is emotionally dead. As a result, the characters of The Wasteland are superficial in every sense of the word. Some are obsessed with appearance. Others are so far detached from the things that make life more than just breathing and looking good, that they perpetuate the destructive cycle that is slowly killing them and their world. They exist without hope, faith and spiritual enlightenment. In every section of The Wasteland, there are examples of both this 'surface' existence and the superficial obsession with appearance.

The Burial of the Dead In the first book of The Wasteland begins with a sense of loss of belonging that comes from superficial living. The fractured nature of the opening lines suggests that snippets of a conversation are being heard. '..with a shower of rain, we stopped in the colonnade.' (pg 23 l8) 'Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt Deutsh.' (pg 23, l12) 'I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter' (pg 23, l18)

This superficial chatter is the talk of a nation without roots, divided up with no sense of belonging to ...

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This superficial chatter is the talk of a nation without roots, divided up with no sense of belonging to the country where they live. It could be argued that such statements are there to try and re-establish themselves. They engage in inconsequential talk, without true depth, as a means of escaping what has been left to them after the war. Eliot indicates how the characters in The Wasteland have lost their roots and cannot establish their identity. As a result they are alive but they are not living. Eliot emphasises this idea with 'What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish?' (pg 23 line 18). The answer is given almost immediately. 'A heap of broken images, where the sun beats.' (pg 23 line 22)

Eliot's meaning is clear, we are living in a wasteland where our identity is lost, waiting for the Fisher King (an allusion to Christ) to return and bring fertility and meaning back to our lives. 'I had not thought death had undone so many' (pg 25 line 64) This idea can be linked to one in The Journey of the Magi, when years after returning from Bethlehem, the Magi are left confused and numb by the experiences of Christ's life. 'We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people.' (pg 66) There is also an echo of Dante's Inferno where after living selfishly, knowing neither good nor evil, the inhabitants now live in hell. The characters of the Wasteland are the same, they 'know nothing'. They are in a sense, dead, totally disconnected from the spiritual nature of life. 'The human engine' (line 216, pg 31) is on autopilot. Life in the Wasteland has become malignant, superficial and emotionless.

A Game of Chess The game of chess contrasts two classes, yet there is a superficial element in both. The ostentatious life of the rich lady in this section is described vividly. 'a burnish throne/ ivory and coloured glass/ seven branched candelabra/ the coffered ceiling'. In amongst these superficial elements of her life there is a portrait on her 'antique mantel' of Philomel. Philomel was brutally raped. In order to portray this superficiality, Eliot contrasts the old woman with Philomel. The old woman says her 'nerves are bad tonight' - a pale reflection of the intense suffering of Philomel. 'I will rush out as I am, and walk the street With my hair down so'. In part II of A Game of Chess, two female characters are talking in a local pub before closing time. They are obsessed with appearances. 'Now Albert's coming back, make yourself look smart.' The woman referred to here has just been through an abortion (a twisted version of lack of fertility). 'It's them pills I took, to bring it off'. Sex has become another mechanical action (seen again with the 'young man carbuncular' and the secretary.) Here there is no love, no feeling just a detachment and a need to fulfil the appearance of living in this land. 'What you get married for if you don't want children?' Yet the superficiality of these women, and indeed in our own lives, illustrates that there is little concern for an abortion ( a heavy burden on an already infertile world) but, 'You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique'. Superficiality and appearances takes precedence over the truth which people are afraid to discuss and as a result they engage in mindless chatter. Eliot includes the section with a reference to Ophelia who turned mad in Hamlet. 'Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.' Like Ophelia the characters are maddened by loss of love and in effect are committing emotional and spiritual suicide through their own ignorance and detachment.

The Fire Sermon This section surveys a world of automatic lust, in which barriers between men and women are dissolved by the suppression of individuality and the transposition of all human needs and desires to the realm of sexual gratification. Eliot also refers to the meaningless pastimes of man in this section. Again there is strong allusion to the Fisher King and his heavy absence. 'I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter's evening'. The images here are again very symbolic of loss of fertility and pointlessness. There are no fish in a canal and winter is always associated with the death of nature. 'The sound of horns and motors' is again symbolic of the technology that has stamped out the beliefs that surrounded us once. The 'river's tent is broken', a sexual image that again suggests that fertility has left this usually most productive of places. The nymphs have gone. The nymphs referred to come from Spenser's Prthalamron where they prepared for a wedding. Their disappearance from the Wasteland is a stark comment on the loss of the sanctity of marriage. All that is left is 'The rattle of bones' and a rat that creeps 'softly through the vegetation'. It is in this environment that the meaningless of relations between men and women are stated. The young man carbuncular arrives, 'Flushed and decided, he assaults her at once; Exploring the encounter with no defence; His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference'. (pg 32) The act of sex has become a kind of 'assault' where 'indifference' is welcomed. This is Eliot's view on relationships between men and women. Tiresias has grown tired of witnessing such acts of violence with out rage. And I Tiresias have foresuffered all Enacted on the same diven or bed. The characters of the wasteland have become obsessed with themselves and spirituality, love, affection means nothing to them. Life has become so mechanical that they 'know nothing..see nothing..remember nothing'. (pg 27 line 122)

Death by Water This section portrays the death of Phlebus the Phoenician sailor. Through this character Eliot shows again how superficiality and appearance mean nothing in death. Once dead all the things craved for, striven for, mean nothing. '.. a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss' (pg 36 line 312) Eventually all are levelled by death. Eliot warns us: 'Consider Phlebus who was once handsome and tall as you'. All the things considered important mean nothing once death has claimed a person. Without belief there is no hope and so death becomes and end rather than a new beginning.

What the Thunder Said The water and drought in What the Thunder Said are symbolic of belief in life. 'If there were only water among the rock' (pg 37 line 388) Water again is the symbol of fertility. If there was only a chance that there might be something that could bring life to the Wasteland, then there would be hope. Water of course becomes symbolic of faith. Eliot's message is if we had faith, then the world would begin to take root again. Eliot suggests that our superficiality is replaced by 'Datta... Dayadhvam..Dumyata' 'give, sympathise, control'. Our superficial nature has left us in an uncontrollable, unsympathetic, mean wasteland.

In short, superficiality is portrayed throughout The Wasteland. Those who inhabit the land exist without faith and reject enlightenment because they are too concerned with appearances, money and other such inconsequential matters that they have lost the ability to recognise what is needed to make life better. 'Do You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember Nothing?