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The Hurdles in Front of Women in Expressing Their Voice in Eliot's The Waste Land

Received: 20 November 2015     Accepted: 5 December 2015     Published: 30 December 2015
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Abstract

For the past previous decades critics have been disapproving Thomas Stearns Eliot repeatedly for his misogynistic dealing of female in his poems. A limited number, though, have regarded his depiction of female roles in assisting the themes he was dealing with in his poetry. The narrative space of The Waste Land is conquered chiefly by female, both modern and mythological, who demonstrate the enduring ruthless connection between male and female. This deeply individual connection, though, is similar to the connection of the individual and society; like the individual, the females must decide to either express their opinions against their suppressors or become quiet and accept their conditions. Each of the two options puts female at danger of extra suppression. Thus, the wasted scenography of The Waste Land is like the background of a halting social world inhabited by dominant people fighting to discover their voice. Eliot depicts the voice of women as the conflict against the destroyed community and communication that typifies the modern world. Modern and mythical characters join in The Waste Land, illuminating the vanity of communication in an area where force hurdles exist between the men and women. By contrasting mythical females from Ovid’s Metamorphoses against the modern characters from The Waste Land, this study will show to what extent the poem’s theme of social collapse prolongs into the contemporary world, whenever such vanity is aroused, in the past and in the modern times, either.

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 3, Issue 6)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijla.20150306.18
Page(s) 171-175
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2015. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Oppression of Women, T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

References
[1] Abrams, M. H. "T. S. Eliot." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. New York: W. W. Norton &, 1993. 2136-182.
[2] Bartky, Sandra Lee. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. New York: Routledge, 1990.
[3] Benjamin, Jessica. The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.
[4] Eliot, T. S. Collected Poems: 1909-1962. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1963.
[5] Ellmann, Maud. “The Poetics of Impersonality: T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.” The Waste Land: Essays, Articles, Reviews. Ed. Nick Selby. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
[6] Ensslin, Astrid. “Women in Wasteland: Gendered Deserts in T.S. Eliot and Shelley Jackson.” Journal of Gender Studies. 14 (2005): 205-216.
[7] Gordon, Lyndall. T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.
[8] Gunnink, Ben. “The Great Waste Land: Sexual Normativity in Two Works of Modernism.” Sep. 27 2006. heliologue.com/pdf/the_great_waste_land.pdf. Web. 07 Aug. 2012.
[9] Hurston, Zora Neale. "Zora Neale Hurston Quotes." Zora Neale Hurston Quotes (Author of Their Eyes Were Watching God). Goodreads Inc., n. d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.
[10] Levenson, Michael. "Does The Waste Land Have a Politics?" Modernism/modernity 6.3 (1999): 1-13. Project MUSE. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web. 15 Feb. 2013.
[11] Ovid, and Charles Martin. Metamorphoses. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.
[12] Pondrom, Cyrena. "T. S. Eliot: The Performativity of Gender in The Waste Land." Modernism/modernity 12.3 (2005): 425-41. Project MUSE. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Sept. 2005. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Mariwan N. Hasan, Shamal A. Hussein. (2015). The Hurdles in Front of Women in Expressing Their Voice in Eliot's The Waste Land. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 3(6), 171-175. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150306.18

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    ACS Style

    Mariwan N. Hasan; Shamal A. Hussein. The Hurdles in Front of Women in Expressing Their Voice in Eliot's The Waste Land. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2015, 3(6), 171-175. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20150306.18

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    AMA Style

    Mariwan N. Hasan, Shamal A. Hussein. The Hurdles in Front of Women in Expressing Their Voice in Eliot's The Waste Land. Int J Lit Arts. 2015;3(6):171-175. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20150306.18

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijla.20150306.18,
      author = {Mariwan N. Hasan and Shamal A. Hussein},
      title = {The Hurdles in Front of Women in Expressing Their Voice in Eliot's The Waste Land},
      journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
      volume = {3},
      number = {6},
      pages = {171-175},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20150306.18},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20150306.18},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20150306.18},
      abstract = {For the past previous decades critics have been disapproving Thomas Stearns Eliot repeatedly for his misogynistic dealing of female in his poems. A limited number, though, have regarded his depiction of female roles in assisting the themes he was dealing with in his poetry. The narrative space of The Waste Land is conquered chiefly by female, both modern and mythological, who demonstrate the enduring ruthless connection between male and female. This deeply individual connection, though, is similar to the connection of the individual and society; like the individual, the females must decide to either express their opinions against their suppressors or become quiet and accept their conditions. Each of the two options puts female at danger of extra suppression. Thus, the wasted scenography of The Waste Land is like the background of a halting social world inhabited by dominant people fighting to discover their voice. Eliot depicts the voice of women as the conflict against the destroyed community and communication that typifies the modern world. Modern and mythical characters join in The Waste Land, illuminating the vanity of communication in an area where force hurdles exist between the men and women. By contrasting mythical females from Ovid’s Metamorphoses against the modern characters from The Waste Land, this study will show to what extent the poem’s theme of social collapse prolongs into the contemporary world, whenever such vanity is aroused, in the past and in the modern times, either.},
     year = {2015}
    }
    

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    AB  - For the past previous decades critics have been disapproving Thomas Stearns Eliot repeatedly for his misogynistic dealing of female in his poems. A limited number, though, have regarded his depiction of female roles in assisting the themes he was dealing with in his poetry. The narrative space of The Waste Land is conquered chiefly by female, both modern and mythological, who demonstrate the enduring ruthless connection between male and female. This deeply individual connection, though, is similar to the connection of the individual and society; like the individual, the females must decide to either express their opinions against their suppressors or become quiet and accept their conditions. Each of the two options puts female at danger of extra suppression. Thus, the wasted scenography of The Waste Land is like the background of a halting social world inhabited by dominant people fighting to discover their voice. Eliot depicts the voice of women as the conflict against the destroyed community and communication that typifies the modern world. Modern and mythical characters join in The Waste Land, illuminating the vanity of communication in an area where force hurdles exist between the men and women. By contrasting mythical females from Ovid’s Metamorphoses against the modern characters from The Waste Land, this study will show to what extent the poem’s theme of social collapse prolongs into the contemporary world, whenever such vanity is aroused, in the past and in the modern times, either.
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Author Information
  • English Department, University of Sulaimani, Sulaimani, Kurdistan

  • English Department, Human Development University, Sulaimani, Kurdistan

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