Yeats and Eliot: The Unwanted Coming and The Wasted Life
The Second Coming
I was blown away by this poem the first time I read it. I found this strangely comparable to prophets of the Old Testament. The world is falling apart into confusion and rebellion, and suddenly a man receives a world-rocking, supernatural vision. Instead of a call to turn back to God, he sees that perhaps everything he thought about his religion was just as false as the Egyptian gods. Even if his religion was true, what does that mean about his god who will make a second coming to Earth? This poem perfectly captures the questions racking the 20th century. The world seems like it is at its worst, so surely Christ is coming again soon. But, perhaps God isn't the God they once thought. Perhaps they don't want the second coming after all.
The Wasteland
I'm still unclear about what all went down, but from what I gathered, the characters all suffer from the same problem: they have no moral grounding. They either don't know right from wrong, or they hold severe apathy towards it. They make casual conversation about abortions and burying the dead, men rape women and the women consent, and in general life has no meaning. What the characters all share is a deep feeling of guilt, but they don't know what to attach to. This drives them to madness and ultimately callousness. The title is very fitting as the characters and the descriptions feel grimy and worthless to the reader. Nothing makes sense, not even the end goal of life described towards the end. What is the purpose of life? To live morally? Then all the characters have no hope. The call for "Shantih" is useless.
P.S. I commented on Ty and Ethan's posts.
I was blown away by this poem the first time I read it. I found this strangely comparable to prophets of the Old Testament. The world is falling apart into confusion and rebellion, and suddenly a man receives a world-rocking, supernatural vision. Instead of a call to turn back to God, he sees that perhaps everything he thought about his religion was just as false as the Egyptian gods. Even if his religion was true, what does that mean about his god who will make a second coming to Earth? This poem perfectly captures the questions racking the 20th century. The world seems like it is at its worst, so surely Christ is coming again soon. But, perhaps God isn't the God they once thought. Perhaps they don't want the second coming after all.
The Wasteland
I'm still unclear about what all went down, but from what I gathered, the characters all suffer from the same problem: they have no moral grounding. They either don't know right from wrong, or they hold severe apathy towards it. They make casual conversation about abortions and burying the dead, men rape women and the women consent, and in general life has no meaning. What the characters all share is a deep feeling of guilt, but they don't know what to attach to. This drives them to madness and ultimately callousness. The title is very fitting as the characters and the descriptions feel grimy and worthless to the reader. Nothing makes sense, not even the end goal of life described towards the end. What is the purpose of life? To live morally? Then all the characters have no hope. The call for "Shantih" is useless.
P.S. I commented on Ty and Ethan's posts.
I really feel you on the wasteland, hard to understand but definitely the sense of no caring. I like how you attacked the morality of their character, one way I failed to analyze (yay blogs helping understand things). I also didn't see the second coming in the way you did, but now I'm seeing that in a completely different view, so thanks!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you on your thoughts of the Second Coming. I think the poem leaves the reader questioning their beliefs because of the idea that God is supposed to be good, but there is no innocence left in the world and if that's the case he should only be coming back to destroy us for our wickedness.
ReplyDeleteI love what you said on The Wasteland. I wish I had read your post before writting mine becuase I did not understand the connection, but this makes sense! All of the people are only shells of themselves and therefore they create their own wasted lives. Oh thank you Sophia!!!
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