I’m not really sure how anything works in this writing. I’m not going to lie when I say that it confused the hell out of me. Between looking up almost all the words to figure out what they mean and then looking down to the bottom of the page to read all the little sub-texts on what he was referencing I feel as though I missed the point. I tried rereading it just for content but it’s hard to do when you don’t have the proper background for the reading.
What I do feel is different than that other modernists was the way in which Eliot spoke. He referenced a lot of higher-class things. His writing doesn’t apply to all of the people in general. I had no idea what Shakespeare plays he was referencing and besides that who would? No other than the ‘learned’ people of the time would. How interesting is it to sit there and explain every little reference to someone? It ruins the meaning I think of the whole point.
The one that I semi-understood was The Fire Sermon. I’m referencing mainly to page 1437. I think, again I stress think, that she may be a prostitute of some sort who uses her body to survive. “Endeavours to engage her in caresses/Which still are unreproved, if undesired./Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;/Exploring hands encounter no defence;/His vanity requires no response;/And makes a welcome indifference.” To me this sounds almost like rape. This man who is “one of the low on whom assurance sits”. Who is he to think that he can take what doesn’t belong to him? Is this what Eliot is getting at? I feel like I’m missing the essential in his writing. Is it the people thinking they can take whatever they want no matter whose it is or even if they don’t have permission. This woman doesn’t want him but yet she does nothing to stop him. She allows herself to be plundered and then goes on with life with a “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over”. I don’t know the entire thing confused me. Eliot called the man her lover but is he really? Maybe that word meant something else back then but to me it doesn’t mean someone whom you allow yourself to sleep with but feel nothing for and just allow him to have his way with you. I don’t know perhaps I am reading the text wrong but to me the entire thing seemed vulgar and it made me feel queasy.
It’s almost as though this woman thinks there is nothing else out there and if this is what she must suffer then she must. She seems despairing and not able to rise above what she is. If this is the ‘lover’ then she will permit him but she will not feel anything but she will keep going because why die. Parker stated it well when she said all the ways of dying pretty much suck so we should all just live anyway. I feel like she’s all alone and as reader you want to reach out and touch her and have her know she’s okay but it’s not possible. In the opening scene she’s just sort of waiting, he knows she’s alone he says so. He goes up has his way with her and then leaves. Again, she’s left alone after her ‘lover’ comes to call. Isolation I guess is what comes to mind when I think of her.
Another point of which I did notice him bringing out the idea of the poor being oppressed type thing was in the same section but on page 1439. ‘On Margate Sands, / I can connect / nothing with nothing. / The broken fingernails of dirty hands. / My people humble people who expect/ nothing.’ That’s just sad. These people work so hard, they expect nothing but yet they don’t have the attitude that they are better than the rest of the world what they do have they are grateful for. They work in the dirt, the grime. They get the worst jobs and yet they think that this is the best life for them. The rich oppress them and take advantage of their humble attitudes to make sure it stays that way.
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