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.
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