T.S. Eliot’s “The battlefield”

T.S. Eliot’s “The battlefield”

By Rosanna Moore

 

After fighting my way through the maze of cultural shrapnel and prophetic undertones of T.S. Eliot’s very fragmented narrative constituting his most influential work, the meaning behind the title began to make a lot more sense. Its referral to the battlefields of France, where muddy graves symbolised the transformation of the modern world into a wasteland in the wake of World War 1, really captures the sense of despair felt by the people of the time – as well as myself in that particular moment.

As a female and what I would generally call an optimist, I decided to focus on the elements of this elegiac mess that stood out to me. By simply observing the titles of each section of prose, I sensed rather obvious connotations to a hopeless and destructive future for mankind. ‘The Burial of the Dead’? Fire, Death and Thunder. Right. Not too cheery Eliot.

The tone is set from the outset of the poem, as Eliot describes “April is the cruelest month, breeding/Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/Memory and desire, stirring/Dull roots with spring rain”. Isn’t Spring typically the season of hope and rebirth? The dry and sterile nature of the poem’s setting is reflected in the way Eliot contrasts symbols of renewal and regeneration, such as water, with imagery of desolate surroundings. While the remembering and “mixing” of past memories with the present, allude to a steep societal decline, the presence of flowers, sunlight and even, say coffee (always perks me up), represent a subtle underlying air of hope.

Eliot’s second book, ‘A Game of Chess’, also managed to strike a chord in me, perhaps in the way that sex is treated as such a meaningless act… or a basic human right for Lil’s husband. The way the lines objectify women here is blatant and outdated: “think of poor Albert/He’s been in the army for four years, he wants a good time/And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will”. Well gee, that’s arousing. The way Eliot de-romanticises physical interaction here really enhances the cold, bleak prospects that the population were faced with, where not even the most natural act of pleasure can be revelled in. He consequently strips such an act of its primal purpose – that of fertility, which emphasises the ‘end of the world’ feel of the piece. The reference to Cleopatra alludes to suicide and the disappointment of love in a world where everyone feels the need to grasp on to the hope of such intangible things. I think the illustration of such a futile, hedonistic society was crucial in the prevention of such an existence, and this is what really determines Eliot’s Wasteland to be such an influential milestone in modern literature.