My views on three questions on the poem 'The Wasteland'.

Respected sir,

1) Yes, Eliot is regressive as compared to Nietzche. Because we can find him more progressive rather than Eliot in his thinking. Nietzche has believed in concept of ‘Ubermensch’- Superman/Overman. Depiction of  ‘Overman’ concentrates in self only. He does not believes in the concept of ‘Life after death.’ He also concentrating on the real world rather than on the rewards of the next world promised by religion. So it is clear that he has no rely on any mysticism. Then he also believes in it that he is the only one who is the creator of his own life. So his concept of Overman is self centered rather than beyond the self. And in the opposite side Eliot believes in spirituality and religion. And he uses myths and history to justify his answer. He has also believes in that the present and future also has some connection with past. In the poem ‘The Wasteland’, we can find some history and  mythical elements  that Eliot has taken from different religion like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity  to find answer of contemporary malaise. 

So, at the end according to me, we can say that Nietzche is more clear to justify his idea of ‘Overman’ rather than Eliot . Because for Nietzche’s that self and real world is more important And for Eliot spirituality and outer world is more important to find his answer.

2) Sigmund Freud believed in natural instincts and on the other side Eliot believed in cultural preservation. The best example of it is democracy system of India that it believes in both ideology that our constitution gives us right of freedom but if we create chaos in society then it also becomes problematic for us. Same here if try to connect freud’s idea that natural instincts and suppressed desires in our unconscious mind should be given displacement. But we have to remember that it should be in limited way. After all we have to live in society.  Sometimes it happens that it is good for self only but when society is consider then it’s excessiveness may affect society. On the other side Eliot believes in culture and it’s preservation and repression of desire. And we can clearly see in the poem that how spiritual degradation and sexual perversion affects wastelander’s life. He tries to find answer in different religion. but he at the end  believes that repression of desires may help to protect our society and  also helps for human salvation.

So, as per my understanding both are right. But what we have to understand is excessiveness of anything is harmful. And I try to connect it with Plato’s quote that excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.  

3) As we know that the poem ‘The Wasteland’ is the mixture of different religion. But here I just want to mention some points that reflects Indian thoughts in the poem. According to Eliot Tiresias is the central figure of the poem. Tiresias is blind hermaphrodite gifted with foreknowledge. He resembles to a certain extent the hindu figure ‘Ardhnaresvara’. Hermaphroditic deities a fused embodiment of the male and female. And if we peeped into Indian mythologies  than we find Shiv and Shakti as ‘Ardhnareshvara’. Next one is myth of sibyl that also remind us the desire of soul to escape from the wheel of things i.e nirvana, moksha, salvation. Then concept of ‘life in death’ and ‘death in life’ life- death- rebirth. That all things we find in the ‘Bhagavad-Gita.’ Eliot also draws our attention on the traditional interpretation of “what the thunder says,” Is taken from the Upanishads. The thunder is personified and made to speak the words of ‘ Prajapati’.  According to Upanishads the voice of thunder and three ‘Da’ means “ Gives”, “ sympathizes”, “self – control”. And at last chant of “ Shantih Shantih Shantih….” the traditional ending to an Upanishad. Eliot his notes of the poem translates this chant as “the peace which passeth understanding .”

Thank you.