The Wasteland: What have we done

The first stanza of section III i very strong for it compares clearly how the rivers have been damaged and contaminated through time:

"The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed." (lines 177-179)

This is how rivers are now a day’s full of garbage and wastes the people just lay around and this kills thousands of animal and plant species. In these beginning stanzas, the feeling of death and destruction is present due to the change that mostly human beings are causing on earth. Due to pollution and lack of care everything has been abandoned in the city of Thames and all that can be heard now is the rats dragging their bellys in the river banks. Not even hope is left only vast destruction and death.

In line 202 Eliot changes his language again "Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!" Why does he continually change his language this way? What does he want to show?

He mentions the Greek Tiresias who could see the future but say nothing and do nothing to change it. This character is the most ironic character I’ve heard about, for he could see the future but was blind and couldn’t change it in any way, so his blessing became his curse, for he knew every tragedy that was to come but couldn’t evade it. This is in a way what happens to the world, people know they are ruining it but they still don’t care and continue to pollute and damage the world. In a way we know the future but can’t prevent it because of peoples lack of care.

Section IV is very short but only by looking at its title you can see that it continues with the grief and death, Phlebas was killed in the sea which is supposedly calmed but at the same time symbolizes death and vastness. Phlebas bones are being taken with the seas currents so he has died in the water.

"A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool." (lines 315-318)

The Wasteland: Sadness and Grief

Section II of The Wasteland refers a lot to many different feelings such as rage, angriness or loneliness. The first example of sadness in this two sections comes in the first stanza of section II:

"In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam." (line 96)
"Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues" (lines 101-102)

This lines make a lot of connections to sadness and a feeling of grief, even though the character has a lot of jewelry, perfumes and even a burnished throne, she is sad and grief’s. In the next fragment of the poem she seems out of tone like if she had stopped living and devoted herself to nothingness. She starts asking questions that have nothing to do with what is happening and asking for people to think and reason. I don’t quite get the meaning of these stanzas in the poem or what the author meant with them:

"'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'" (lines 111-114)

Line 126 ends up with the most shocking of all questions the one that made me feel more grief and sadness it says: "'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'" (line 126)
Once I read this lines I felt as if the character had lost the will to live, the sense of his life and his reason to be. Is the main character confused? Has she lost her mind?

In the end of the second section, there is a lot of repetition in the conversation between the two women, why is "Hurry up its time" repeated so many times?? She says goodnight to all her children then leaves.

The Wasteland: Hopeless destruction

The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot is an extremely dense poem which describes life in a very critical way. In this first section I get a feeling of hopelessness. The amount of unexpected things that society does that end up causing a negative effect and can bring environmental reactions you can’t control. In this first section there is a clear example of something unexpected:

"And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man . Fear death by water."

"Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days." (Section 1 lines51-60)

The idea of the Horoscope is very unpredictable and shows the lack of control humans have over life or death, or over the forces of nature and the order of things. The idea that you get a blank card as in nothingness, the lack of something or just something you have, but either don’t know you do or is out of your control. You can’t control nature but you can leave it unaltered, in order for it to have its own natural order.

The first stanza is very interesting because it talks about death in a time of supposed rebirth:

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain." (Section 1 lines 1 to 4)

April marks the beginning of spring and the end of the lifeless winter. As in Inferno by Dante, winter and cold are the cruelest of punishments. There is also a contrast between life and death in which Lilacs are born from a dead land. This idea reminds me to the Phoenix a mythological creature that dies and is born again from its ashes. This happens after winter to all living creatures.

Something I found odd about this poem was that the author changes language in the middle of the text

"Frisch weht der Wind

Der Heimat zu.

Mein Irisch Kind,

Wo weilest du?" (Section 1 lines 31-34)

What kind of reaction does the author expect from this type of writing, what is the feeling he wants to create?

Epictetus 16-30

The biggest idea I found on most of this sections of the Epictetus handbook was that things don’t have to be seen as they are, but you should interpret them as better fits the situation you are in. Also I think it’s very strange the way the author sees lie. "For this is your business, to act well the character assigned you; to choose it is another's." (1) the idea that what you are you have to be and you simply have to act that way no matter what, is very different from my perspective. To me you become what you work for and you get a reward in life for what you do. not like Epictetus says that life is just an act.

Epictetus sates a very interesting idea that I really liked in section twenty when he says that: "When, therefore, anyone provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes you."(1) I liked the way he says that you should not listen to insults people tell you because it’s just the way you feel about them that makes you mad. There is no real insult if you don’t interpret it as such. What was Epictetus style of life? Why did he develop such ideas?

Epictetus view of the family is the most interesting thing so far. the way he thinks children should be totally devoted to their father and he says if you have a bad father not all people can have good fathers. This is really interesting because he views family in a very different way as we do and like he said in the previous sections if you are not too fond of a family member you won’t care on loosing it.

Citation

1. http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html (its another translation of the handbook)