In a formal way, you can even say the structure of the poem experiences a breakdown the same way the character speaking seems to have a mental breakdown. Without tradition to help us structure our lives in meaningful ways, there's nothing to save us from mental and emotional collapse, which seems to be happening to the speaker in this instance. Lines I think we are in rats' alley Where the dead men lost their bones.
When the speaker suddenly says, "I think we are in rats' alley," he might be referring to one of the awful trenches that soldiers lived in during World War I. Military companies would often give morbid nicknames to these trenches, and this would explain why this is a place where "the dead men lost their bones. Look for it later, in line Lines "What is that noise?
And it's kind of a crappy one. Lines show someone being really paranoid about he sound of wind coming through a doorway which include another allusion to John Webster. Hey, it's just wind, buddy. We're thinking this is a return to the really stressed out neurotic person we were just hearing from in lines Luckily, we've got the speaker of the poem to reassure this person. And when the speaker of the poem insists that it is "nothing again nothing," that line jumps out as being Very Important to Shmoop.
The repetition of the word "nothing" might hint toward the overall nothingness of modern life with all its shallowness. This is followed by another set of anxious questions about whether or not the speaker of the poem actually knows nothing.
As you can see with the placement of "Do" way inside the margin, the structure of the poem continues to get more wonky as it reflects the collapsing mind of the person speaking. Lines I remember Those are pearls that were his eyes. Remember that from earlier in the poem—the Madame Sosostris exchange?
Eliot would really hope his audience would get a famous Shakespeare reference like this, but many people might not have, which kind of proves his point about the whole modern-society-blows thing. This image of a hardened, dead soul leads back into the question of whether you the reader are even alive or not. This poem constantly brings up zombie-like images of the undead as a metaphor for modern life. For Eliot, our society has gotten so spiritually numb that we can't even really say if we're alive or dead anymore.
Our eyes are too glazed and pearly from watching all those episodes of Love in the Wild. It's also worth noting that these lines are a callback to lines 37 and 48 of this very poem—remember the pearls-for-eyes sailor?
And that existential crisis in the hyacinth garden? Yep, it's all going down all over again. Not so fast. Instead of giving us this, though, the poem launches into a riff on a popular Irving Berlin song from Eliot's time. The song was called "That Mysterious Rag," only the speaker refers to "that Shakespearean Rag," perhaps alluding to his mention of The Tempest two lines above. Anything else to add, Sherlock? This is followed by a repetition of the question "What shall I do?
This section could also refer to the loss of religion and spirituality in modern life, which leaves people speechless when it comes to figuring out what to do with their lives. Lines The hot water at ten. What shall we do? How about hot water at ten, a closed car, and a game of chess?
These lines speak about how people wish to kill time in their lives, staying up all night and playing a game of chess. In this sense, maybe Eliot means that without spirituality, modern life is just a long game we play with ourselves, always competing, setting goals, and strategizing simply for the sake of "playing the game. He also wrote another play called Women Beware Women , in which a game of chess represents all of the moves a man makes while cornering and seducing woman, which will come up later in "The Waste Land" in the story of the "young man carbuncular.
This whole time, though, the speaker is "pressing lidless eyes," which suggests a lack of sleep, and "waiting for a knock upon the door" , which could mean that he's waiting for something or someone to walk into his life and give it meaning.
In this sense, modern life just seems like a long wait for something that never seems to come. Formally speaking, this is also the last little bit of ordered rhyme "four" and "door" that you get before the structure of the poem totally collapses into the conversation at a pub. This could represent a last gasp of sorts of classic culture before it totally gives way to filthy barroom shenanigans. Or something. These lines and the rest of "A Game of Chess" focus on one woman telling a story of a conversation she had to an audience of acquaintances at a bar.
Continue to explore the world of T. Nevertheless, his poetry changed the landscape of Anglophone poetry for good. Born in St Louis, Missouri in , Eliot studied at Harvard and Oxford before abandoning his postgraduate studies at Oxford because he preferred the exciting literary society of London.
Although his first collection, Prufrock and Other Observations , sold modestly its print run of copies would take five years to sell out , the publication of The Waste Land in , with its picture of a post-war Europe in spiritual crisis, established him as one of the most important literary figures of his day.
He never returned to America except to visit as a lecturer , but became an official British citizen in , the same year he was confirmed into the Church of England. His last major achievement as a poet was Four Quartets , which reflect his turn to Anglicanism.
In his later years he attempted to reform English verse drama with plays like Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party He died in London in The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. Pingback: A Short Analysis of T.
Username or Email Address. Remember Me. Lost your password? The Waste Land. A Game of Chess The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, Glowed on the marble, where the glass Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines From which a golden Cupidon peeped out Another hid his eyes behind his wing Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra Reflecting light upon the table as The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it, From satin cases poured in rich profusion; In vials of ivory and coloured glass Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, Unguent, powdered, or liquid — troubled, confused And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air That freshened from the window, these ascended In fattening the prolonged candle-flames, Flung their smoke into the laquearia, Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
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