Ideological Facets Of Marginality

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot is considered as a highly influential modernistic poem that abounds in literary and cultural heritages and is distinguished for its fragmentary composition. By bringing together seemingly unrelated scraps from earlier poets and artists, Eliot established a new way of expression in this poem, and further ensured it as the bridge that allowed poetry to cross from the traditional to the present.Such transition in poetry actually was a reflection of the transitional period of Western civilization happening at the time when Europe was shifting from the pre-war era to the post-war one. During that period the Western world had undergone great sufferings and changes—in both material and spiritual aspects—which as a result caused the embarrassment of the modern man, who didn't know what to believe in and where to turn to, trapped and lost as revealed in The Waste Land.Trying to appreciate this great poem from an original and new angle, the present thesis employs marginality theory as its theoretic perspective. It is universally acknowledged that The Waste Land abounds in so much literary and culture heritage that its obscurity keeps haunting readers for almost a century. The author of the thesis finds that not only the poem itself but also the reading process of it could be perceived as a perfect and typical example of being marginal, which can be best expounded from the perspective of marginality theory. And the focus, as well as the objective of this thesis is concentrated on exploring ideological facets of marginality in The Waste Land. These ideological facets are indifference, fragmentation and futility.Chapter 1, "Indifference in Love Business in The Waste Land", analyzing love business in the poem respectively through the comparison of traditional romantic love and modern love business, and emotional needs and physical temptations, commences digging out the first ideological facet of marginality in The Waste Land. Modern love business, as depicted typically through the love affair between the typist and "the young man carbuncular", lacks what is required in traditional romantic love: passion, understanding and faithfulness, declining to mere business of sexual exchange. In the poem, the state of being marginal is profoundly exemplified through various modern love businesses, which is far more degenerated from the traditional romantic love, presenting the predicament of the wasteland people, who are inarticulate or even speechless, confronting love business before their eyes, trapped and struggling between emotional needs and physical temptations.The next chapter, Chapter 2, "Fragmentation of Cultural Heritage in The Waste Land", explores the second ideological facet of being marginal in The Waste Land, illustrated by insights into the summoning up of a vast range of juxtapositions of literary and cultural heritage, which is also a striking feature of this poem, in which multifarious kinds of images, such as natural images, human images, landscape images, mythical and religious images, etc. are juxtaposed, religious beliefs, including beliefs of Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism are paralleled, and countless literary classics, ranging from past to the present of several different languages are apposed. Yet, these literary and cultural juxtapositions construct the marginality of this poem with their equal significance and degeneration of turning into a bulk of fragments. Thereby another characteristic of marginality, namely fragmentation, is denounced and expounded.One more facet of ideological marginality is exploited in Chapter 3, "Futility in Spiritual Search in The Waste Land". With an analysis imitating the spiritual search on "the wasteland," spiritual marginality of The Waste Land is unfolded primarily through the result of the spiritual search—vainness of salvation. That there is eventually an unrealized salvation at the end of the poem shows that "the wasteland" and its people are out of the circle of being saved, left on the margin of redemption. Besides, the setting of "Unreal City" framing the spiritual search in the poem is studied to explore the duality of being neither real nor false, coincides with the state of being marginal.Apparently The Waste Land represents a group of literary works breaking off from the old tradition and trying to survive through experiments of new techniques when faced with the inevitability of the inarticulation in poetic expression which is in a similar situation as those wasteland people portrayed in the poem. The poem finds its origin from both of the culture of tradition and modernism. Bearing these characteristics of marginality, The Waste Land, in such a world witnessing the momentous event of radical development of human civilization, functions not only as a bridge connecting the past and the present, but also a prophetic text telling the aftermath of a materially affluent yet spiritually poor life—marginality. Therefore, it is of primary and fundamental importance to have an acute understanding, feeling, experiencing and expounding of marginality as well as the perfect revelation of its ideological facets in The Waste Land.