Abstract
T. S. Eliot’s monumental poem, The Waste Land, discusses hopelessness and desolation and shuns them at every turn. The speakers spurn it and despair at the desolate state of humankind and society. This paper aims to read T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in light of Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection and Jacques Lacan’s notion of jouissance. The main claim is that despite the apparent horror of desolation, the more the poem tries to repel desolation, the more it cannot help but repeatedly allude to it, as if unwillingly drawn to it, so that death and desolation are not the subject, nor are they the object, but rather the abject of the poem. The sections of the poem I feel are most relevant for such an analysis are “The Burial of the Dead” (lines 1-30) and “What the Thunder Said” (lines 322-375).
Highlights
One theme that especially stands out is that of death and desolation, “the prevalent condition[...] of mourning” in the poem (Harmon 454)
The theme continues throughout the work, the warning against desolation ripe, the poem spurning misery, despairing at the desolate state of humankind
Eliot’s The Waste Land in light of Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection, with the main claim that, despite the apparent horror of, the apparent aversion to desolation, the more the poem tries to repel desolation, the more it cannot help but allude to it in perverse fascination, over and over again, as if unwillingly drawn to it, so that death and desolation are not the subject, nor are they the object of the poem, but rather the abject
Summary
S. Eliot’s seminal poem, The Waste Land, called “the poem of the century” (Brooker and Bentley 3), is home of a confusing array of voices (Reeves 36), and themes. One theme that especially stands out is that of death and desolation, “the prevalent condition[...] of mourning” in the poem (Harmon 454). S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in light of Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection, with the main claim that, despite the apparent horror of, the apparent aversion to desolation, the more the poem tries to repel desolation, the more it cannot help but allude to it in perverse fascination, over and over again, as if unwillingly drawn to it, so that death and desolation are not the subject, nor are they the object of the poem, but rather the abject
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