The Young Housewife By William Carlos Williams

This poem by William Carlos Williams caught my eye because I understood the meaning of the poem right away. Williams describes a young housewife that has lost her soul or sense of freedom. William expresses the loss of freedom with the lines:

                        At ten AM the young housewife

                        Moves about in negligee behind

                        The wooden walls of her husband’s house. (1-3)

By stating a specific time of when the housewife moves about the house, it gives the sense that the housewife lacks spontaneity and is confined to a schedule everyday. The housewife also seems like she is not part of her home but rather just another person living along with her husband in his house. The fact that she also walks around her “husband’s house” in a negligee gives the impression that she is some kind of object rather than a human being. These three opening lines give great evidence to the theme of loss of freedom.  

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

My second post for T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land, is going to be a brief summary of the style and form of the poem. In the first section, “The Burial of the Dead”, it can be seen as a dramatic monologue but with four speakers instead of one. In the second section, “A Game of Chess”, the beginning is very unrhymed and lack meter. As the section goes on, the more irregular and unmetered it becomes. In the third section, “The Fire Sermon”, Eliot includes a rhyme or two here and there. He also includes bits and pieces of music. In the fourth section, “Death by Water”, seems like the most organized portion of the poem it has four pairs of rhyming couplets. In the last section, “What the Thunder Said”, also explores forms of music just like the third section did.

                        London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down 

                        Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina 

                        Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow 

                        Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie 

                        These fragments I have shored against my ruins (426-430)

The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

When I read this poem, I really did not understand what was going on. I was highly distracted by all the footnotes and found myself going back and forth trying to decipher this poem. The final product of reading the poem ended with a very confused version of me. I decided to read a summary of the poem off of SparkNotes and finally understood what was going on in this poem. In the first section, “The Burial of the Dead”, the audience of the poem feels crowded with many speakers. The speakers want to talk but they are burdened with dead people. In the second section, “A Game of Chess”, contains two scenes, one of a wealthy woman being caught up in frantic and meaningless thoughts and the other scene consisting of two women in a bar talking about one of their friends that is on the brink of losing her husband. In the third section, “The Fire Sermon”, opens with a scene of a man fishing on a desolate riverside and meets a tarot card reader. I’m not sure if that is exactly what happens or if I misinterpreted the poem and summary. In the fourth section, “Death by Water”, talks about a man that has drowned and creatures of the sea have picked his dead body apart. This is also the shortest section of the poem. In the last section, “What The Thunder Said”, begins with a scene of mass destruction but then the poem shifts to another part of the world and ends in a very confusing way. I am really hoping that class on Tuesday will help me better understand this poem!