THE WASTE LAND II – A GAME

OF CHESS
Explanation of Extracts

Submitted by Group 4:
Maryam Ahmad (1739-FLL/BSENG/F17)
Maryam Rimsha (1690-FLL/BSENG/F17)
Mahnoor Arif (1661-FLL/BSENG/F17)
Mashal Khan (1652-FLL/BSENG/F17)
“A Game of Chess” is second portion of the four-part series on T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”.
In the first fifteen lines, T.S Eliot begins the poem “A Game of Chess” with the description of a
kingly feminine figure who is sitting in a “burnished throne”. He mentions lavish room décor
including glowing marbles, fruited vines, a golden Cupidon, a seven-branched candle holder.
Eliot then focuses more on the appearance of the figure, who is probably a queen in our
interpretation. The glitter of her jewels and rich profusion is suddenly related to the ephemeral
charm and beauty. “her strange synthetic perfumes” is probably an indicator of Eliot’s skepticism
towards the evolving science which only causes ‘trouble, confusion and drowns the senses of a
common man’. It can also signify the hollow, yet charismatic Capitalist standards of success set
in the modern era. The material success might be comforting to the eyes, but they are ‘synthetic’,
‘drowned the sense in odours’, and a mere source of delusion.
There is a representation of the gloomy environment of the room which might depict the same
scenario of ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. The materialistic objects are enclosed but
there is still nothing to cherish. Here, Eliot symbolizes modern life and it’s a fragmented
association among people. The reference is pulled from Ovid Metamorphosis; Philomela
agonized trauma. The King falls in love with his wife’s sister. ‘Sylvan Scene’ pictured her rape
by a brother-in-law, ‘barbarous’ King Tereus. He cuts her tongue to prevent her from telling the
truth. Love a cascading into animality and violence. Philomela tells her sister. She slays his son
and presents him in dinner. The speechless girl turns to a ‘nightingale’. The innocent life for
Philomela is as unrequited love for the flower.
The first extract ends with the description of women brushing her hair which wants to say
something but the nearing steps on the stairs makes it unheard. The second extract starts with a
conversation of a woman with her lover who asks him to stay. The woman asks him irrational
and neurotic questions to which the man responds in a rude and depressing tone, thereby
reducing her. She asks him to speak and express his thoughts to which he dismisses. He titles her
house as a “rat’s alley” which might be a reference to World War 1. The breakdown in the
structure of the poem depicts the fragmented and broken mental state of the modern man. The
repetition of the word “nothing” represents the nothingness and meaninglessness of the modern
world.
In our society has become profoundly numb to such an extent that we cannot even tell if we are
alive or dead anymore.. when the woman asks him whether there is anything in his head, he
replies with another quotation, this time not from Shakespeare but about Shakespeare, a jazz
song ‘Shakesperian Rag’. He is confined o quoting other people rather than giving personal,
heartfelt answers to the questions put to him by the woman. This is what T. S. Eliot himself is
doing: quoting other people. The line “What shall we do” suggests that the people in this poem
clearly do not have the slightest idea about how to manage their time, since they do not recognize
what activities are beneficial or important for them. The woman plans that she is going to play
chess the next day, which can be depicted as a representation of worthless and meaningless
routine in one’s life