Mary Karr's How to Read "The Wasteland" so it Alter's Your Mind

After reading Mary Karr's instructions on how to read The Wasteland helped me to see the poem in another light. Karr suggests reading the poem with an open mind and letting it wash over your senses in the way Eliot unintended. She feels that too many analysis have been made for the poem. Mary Karr wants the reader to embrace the poem with passion and to let it induce passion in the reader. She feels that this passion will help you to become alert to the true meaning of the poem as well as experiences in one's own life.

Scholarly Jornal Researchfor "The Wasteland": "Broken Images"

While researching The Wasteland on the school's database, I came across an article that really caught my attention. It is titled, "Broken Images" by: Anthony L. Johnson. He actually uses the term, "signifier referentibility", which he defines as, "segments of the signified, allowing the reader to see all the "signposts" as connected. We spent a lot of time on the term signifier, and signifying in class, and I thought this article helped me understand the term a little better as well. Applying the term to Eliot's work, I have come to understand the poem, in a different way. Johnson points out the reoccurring "flying rat" and describes how it is a signifier of female fertility. Johnson explains that Eliot's purpose of writing this poem is to tell a story, and the way he writes it is done in such a style that it gives the story a lot of underlying connections the reader must make in their head. Johnson uses the terms, "Discursive Fragmentation" and "Paradigmatic Linkage" to describe Eliot's style of writing. Paradigmatic linkage is when the reader can depict certain dynamic reworkings between two passages. Which in the case of The Wasteland, Eliot does use this concept. Discursive fragmentation is what Eliot uses when there are unannounced shifts in the way he writes, changing the style of the writing. Eliot does this all throughout the poem, supposedly it is supposed to "signify" or allude to different things, or historical events.
Johnson's article has helped me understand Eliot's style, and CHOICE of style while writing the poem, The Wasteland, and it has really opened my eyes to the idea that there was a reason for this style, and there is a lot more to decode about this poem. I feel I am constantly going back and forth with this poem, however, Johnson's article really makes logical sense, and I see now the actual meaning behind the structure of the poem, and a little insight into the allegorical meaning as well!

Internet research on "The Wasteland"

As i was researching The Wasteland on the Internet to get a more in-depth understanding, I came across a critique written by a guy named Joseph King. His interpretation of the poem was that is was about sex. He thinks the first lines indicate sex. When Eliot writes about April as the rebirth and spring, King thinks he is describing sex in a negative light. he then goes on to describe the presence of sex in "A Game of Chess", saying that in Eliot's line,"think of poor Albert/ He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time/ And if you don't give it him, there's others will", is suggesting that sex is a human need, and it is lacking anything more? He also thinks the name "A Game of Chess", is symbolizing sex as a game. Up until reading this guy's personal idea of the poem, I thought I was really getting to understand the poem. He does raise a good point, and I can see his connections. I am sure there is some sexuality in this poem, however, I am not sure that this is all this poem is about. That, or, it is not intended to be about sex as the main theme. I do like his connections, and they have given me a different perspective, but as readers, we can drawn any symbols we want out of a story, and I think he might have dug a little too deep with this. I found his analysis at: http://www.helium.com/items/409042-poetry-analysis-the-waste-land-by-t-s-eliot-as-a-critique-on-sexuality?page=2

Edmund Wilson: "The Poetry of Drouth" ~ Critical response to "The Wasteland"

One of the critical responses I was assigned to read for T.S. Eliot's, The Wasteland was a critic by Edmund Wilson titled, "The Poetry of Drouth". His critic really helped me understand what Eliot was doing with his poem. Wilson describes Eliot's poem by writing, "...first meagre volume of twenty-four poems was dropped into the waters of contemporary verse without stirring more than a few ripples. But when two or three years had passed, it was found to stain the whole sea" (140). This explains the misunderstanding of the poem at first, for the first couple of years it was not even really acknowledged as any good. Wilson also believes that Eliot's poems were once considered, "vers de societe," meaning they were considered familiar, or unoriginal. But now every other poet seems to branch off of Eliot's poem. It is funny to me that Wilson brings up this idea that at first people really didn't understand this poem, and after really digging into it, and critiquing it, the poem goes from being 'familiar' to one of the most unique poems in the world. It is like my perception of it. At first, I did not understand it and just thought Eliot went in his room, shut the door and wrote whatever popped into his head. That, however is not the case, thanks to Wilson, I have come to learn alot more than I thought I would about Eliot's work.
Wilson gives a reasoning for Eliot's choice of his title, which actually really helped me get a better grasp of the mind state of Eliot. According to Wilson, Eliot got his title from a book by the author, Jessie L. Weston, Ritual of Romance. He also confirms my initial thoughts that the poem was a sort of puzzle that you have to piece together in order to completely comprehend it in it's entirety.
In Wilson's critic, he explains how this poem takes place in half the real world, and half a "haunted legend" ~ "The wasteland of Medieval Legend", he also reveals the symbolism to the water in the story. Wilson goes on to link Ms. Weston's use of the legend of the Holy Grail, to Eliot's own interpretation of it. She uses the Grail to symbolize the cries of the Sumerian - Babylonian civilizations, where Eliot interprets that as the "voices of all the thirsty men of the past," as Wilson puts it.
Wilson praise, and interpretation has helped me, as a reader understand, appreciate, and accept this poem as a mastery piece that deserves to be considered one of the all time best poems in the world.

The Century Project

After visiting the century project with the class, I was really moved. I was and am proud of my fellow classmates and teachers for writing what they feel, and taking a stand against the censoring of the project. I was so moved by the project that I took my mother back the next day who has had four different cancers from the time she 19, she is now 56. She has many scars along her stomach all the way to her neck. She has had a mastectomy, stem-cell transplants, radiation, and chemotherapy; it is quite evident her body physically does not look the best. It is, however, still functioning and doing what it needs to do. She is very insecure about her body and until this project she seemed to feel like she was the only one who was so insecure. It made my mother really open her eyes and see she is not alone, and it was inspirational. I am embarrassed that my school would be the first to censor such a moving project. It is insulting to the students and artist. After my mother and I left we talked about why they would do such a thing, and the only mutual agreement that we reached is that they did not research the project before they made the call to censor it. That reminds me of when a certain someone tried to ban books that she had never read. It is ignorance, and it does not teach us much about self expression. In a school with such a wonderful art department, it makes me feel like they are trying to tell those students to censor their creativity for fear of it being "offensive"? I hope this does not become a trend with other schools picking up on the stigma that UNCW has no put on this project!

"Battle Royal"

After reading "Battle Royal", I had an unsettling feeling in my stomach. The use of symbolism is extremely apparent in every bit of the story. I had to read in-depth to the part about the boys fighting for coins the white men threw on the electric rug. I was excited because that was the part of the story that really got my attention. When I visited South Africa, which is still extremely racist, this part in particular reminds me of being in South Africa. The children there would come up to us and beg for our money, we would watch how many white Africans (mostly made up of Dutch and British) would toss them money, or simply laugh at them for the fact they were begging. This part in the story reminded me of that horrible control the white people felt they had over the blacks. In South Africa, I often wondered how could people treat others like they are nothing? This story really brought that feeling back, that because of the color of someones skin they are less of a human.

In class, I was asked what I thought the electric rug symbolized, and I had thought about it before that class and could not really pin point the symbol it creates. After class, I was really bothered by the fact I could not find a symbolic meaning for the rug, so I re read the entire story, after a class discussion, and came up with what I thought the rug meant. I believe it to represent the idea that you should never believe what you see, because it is probably not exactly right. The boys put their trust in these white men and made the boys look foolish diving for money and taking the electric shock. The narrator refers to himself as a "rat" at one point. This metaphor makes me think the connection of a slummy rodant that people view as annoying and pesty, with no concern as to if they were dead or alive. Also, rats are trash eating, take anything they can get, species. Which is how the whites were treating the boys.

"Waste Land"!

Now that we have explored the poem a little more, I am starting to appreciate it a little more. I would not go as far to say I like it...yet...but I do appreciate it. Many of the critics we have read in class have different opinions of Eliot's reasoning and style. Some think he meant to write the poem the way he wrote it, with every piece of information and punctuation exactly the way it is in the poem. Others think it was more just a stream of conscious that doesn't seem to make sense. First reading it, I would completely agree with the whole stream of conscious idea, but now, after reading others opinions, I think Eliot definitely had a reason and planned out style for the poem. It was interesting exploring the poem on a political level because there is so much politics involved. Now, to me personally, it is like a puzzle or maze that he intended for the reader to put together! Every time we discuss it, a new piece starts to make sense and falls into place, it is pretty cool actually. Whether or not I like the poem, it is unique, and deserves to be given credit for it's uniqueness. Eliot seems to be doing something I have never read before, and what that is, I can not quite figure out...yet...