Postwar Trauma: ‘A Game of Chess’ in T. S. Eliot’s The
Waste Land
Research Assistant Ömer ÖĞÜNÇ
ABSTRACT
The World War I is one of the greatest catastrophes in human history. Not only the
horrible conditions in the trenches, but also the aftermath of the war with the
veterans coming back to their ordinary lives proved to be quite problematic. These
issues were reflected in literature, particularly in poetry as well. Hence, war poetry,
dealing with a specific period, came into being to shed light to the difficulties
during the war. The period that covers 1920s was also among the major concerns
of the poets at the time. The symptoms of post-war trauma at personal and social
levels were handled through modernist techniques that shaped poetry in that
decade. T.S. Eliot, one of the founding fathers of modernism in British poetry,
wrote The Waste Land to depict the condition of humanity in utmost destruction
following the war. Made up of five parts, the poem focuses on major themes like
social catastrophe, loss of happiness and hope for the future, belief in nothing,
desolate atmosphere and devastation that characterize the postwar British society.
The second part of the poem, entitled ‘A Game of Chess,’ resembles humans to
simple pieces just like those on a chessboard. Even this resemblance in the title
shows the postwar condition for the whole society. The people, who live on a
waste land, have squeezed in a desperate situation just like pieces in a game of
chess. In line with the fisher king myth, which actually underlies the infertility of
mankind in the postwar period, the couples in this part have no communication
with each other, and, therefore, there is no love and reproduction. The concept of
nothingness, which also stands for the social reality in this decade, dominates the
whole poem, with this part being no exception. So, this paper aims at analyzing ‘A
Game of Chess’ in T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land from the perspective of the
traumatic effects of the World War I and tries to exemplify the social reality of the
period as represented in poetry.
Keywords: T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, WWI, trauma, desolation.
*****
The Waste Land finally published in 1922 after being written by T. S. Eliot and
edited by Ezra Pound was the product of a long struggle that continued about
twenty years culminating in a literary masterpiece which combined both a
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challenge to the entire literary tradition and a representation of the post World War
I era. Although the poem is made up of five different parts representing five
elements of earth, air, fire, water and aether respectively, because of the seeker
image in a quest, all these parts follow each other in an order making use of the
same symbols and references in relation to each other. After the greatest war in
human history, ‘the trauma of the war, especially of the unprecedented suffering in
the trenches, spread out from Flanders Field and all the other battlefields of the war
across a Europe in shock.’1 Beside the physical effects on the environment, moral
and spiritual life lost its vitality to such an extent that attitude towards life became
gloomy, dark and desperate. Under these circumstances, it was impossible to return
to ‘the old buoyancy of a failed innocence.’2 Upon this landscape, characterized by
its barrenness, a quest goes on without any potential for improvement.
In relation to this general atmosphere in the poem, the second part titled ‘A
Game of Chess’ also follows a similar pattern based on the hopeless, degenerate,
infertile, untrustworthy and cruel situation of the mankind. Reducing people on
earth just to pieces on a chessboard, this part intends to show the difference
between people just like between pieces and underlines their despair regardless of
status in the social scale. The original title ‘In the Cage’ actually intended to draw
attention to this trap in which humanity had no alternative to escape. Still, the game
with the preordained roles for all characters serves this purpose and all individuals
resume their lives under the influence of this environment surrounding them. The
first part of the poem which presents a detailed introduction to the waste land is
followed by this second one focusing particularly on the individuals in their private
lives. The reasons for the general problems of the setting are thus looked for in the
household and family relations of the individuals associating them with various
figures in the literary history. ‘A Game of Chess’ will therefore be studied within
this context to illuminate the troubles of the individuals and the particular social
classes they belong in this waste land.
This part begins with the gorgeous description of a delicately ornamented room
with a lady acting like a queen of the ancient times. The very first lines coming
from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra are used manipulatively for the purpose
of reflecting the situation in the waste land. In the play, it is indeed Enobarbus who
speaks in the scene that depicts Cleopatra’s beauty and grandeur.
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burn’d on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and do perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
[…]
[…] For her own person,
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavilion – cloth-of-gold of tissue –
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O’verpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork of nature.3
However, Eliot’s poem is quite far from this courtly atmosphere placing the
woman character in a chair at the beginning: ‘The Chair she sat in, like a burnished
throne, / glowed on the marble […].’4 Cleopatra’s perfumes make even the wind
lovesick while in the contemporary version ‘In vials of ivory and colored glass /
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, / Unguent, powdered or liquid
– troubled, confused / And drowned the sense in odors.’5 In other words, the
perfumes become a source of suffocation, almost threatening human life. Similar to
the case in four other parts of The Waste Land, Eliot begins the second one with a
clear reference to another literary work. However, due to his intention of depicting
life in the contemporary waste land, he distorts the facts in the original work. He
thus creates a parody of Shakespeare’s play at the beginning.6
The title of this part implies a relationship between the game and the social
structure in general. In chess, there is a hierarchical relationship between the
pieces. Similarly, contemporary society in Eliot’s time has this kind of a formation
in terms of social classes. If this second part of The Waste Land is to be divided
into two sections, the first section which takes place in a room refers to the upper
class. The second section, however, includes a representation of the lower class
people in a pub. Based on this difference in the setting, the main themes of despair
and lack of hope are brought forward.
In this respect, the first section of ‘A Game of Chess’ is important in that it
begins with a detailed description of a room emphasizing the broken bonds
between nature and humanity. Hugh Kenner states that in the room ‘all things deny
nature; the fruited vines are carved, the Cupidons golden, the light not of the sun,
the perfumes synthetic, the candelabra (seven-branched, as for an altar) devoted to
no rite, the very color of the fire-light perverted by sodium and copper salts.’7 This
isolation of the inhabitants from nature might be associated with the infertility of
the waste land. Contrary to nature, the source of life, the characters live without
any connection to new alternatives and, above all, life itself. They are already stuck
into what they have been experiencing. The theme of infertility is obvious in the
relationship between the couple through their supposed conversations. The lack of
communication in the so-called dialogues shows that the individuals are isolated
from each other in addition to the isolation from nature. Therefore, it is possible to
mention loneliness in their life. The struggle of the woman to start a conversation
on her own is a proof for this loneliness:
My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
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I never know what you are thinking. Think.8
Contrary to this one-sided effort, the husband has no voice all this while.
Rather than in quotation marks, his answers are given as if they are inner thoughts.
He keeps his opinions and answers to himself. There is no connection between the
two: ‘I think we are in rats’ alley / Where the dead men lost their bones.’9 This
thought is a frank acknowledgement of their situation. Despite their relationship,
there is no possibility of coming together. Smith believes that “having lost the
hyacinth girl, the quester finds himself joined with a neurotic, shrewish woman of
fashion. […] She stands merely as a symbol of lovelessness. Yet she has something
of the sibyl’s role, for she has introduced the quester to the mystery of sex.”10
Hence the subject of ‘sex without love, specifically within marriage’ in this part
governs this relationship.11
The man’s answer ‘Nothing again nothing’ to her question, once more on his
own, receives a bunch of further questions based on this nothingness: “‘Do / You
know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember / Nothing?”’ 12 They
gradually come to a peak of examining whether he is alive or not: ‘“Are you alive
or not? Is there nothing in your head?”’13 The progress of the so-called
conversation is characterized by the woman’s depiction earlier. ‘Under the
firelight, under the brush, her hair / Spread out in fiery points / Glowed into words,
then would be savagely still.’14 It is this Medusa-like woman whose hair with fiery
points aims at the man. Stephen Coote believes that
no longer is there celebration or poetry. The woman is
frightening and vicious. The staccato rhythms of her questions
and confidences seem to pour out of her own emptiness only to
fall into the man’s vacant self-absorption. His mind runs on
death and nihilism.15
This is in fact why the man makes references to images like rats’ alley full of
dead men and pearl eyes associated with death both in Shakespeare’s Tempest and
‘The Burial of the Dead.’ Taking the fact that the pearl eye image appears initially
in the first part and that rat image is repeated in the third part, it might also be
argued that ‘A Game of Chess’ is a bridge between these parts in terms of the
theme of death.
Similar to this relationship between the upper class couple obvious in the
luxurious decoration of the room, the couple of the lower class in the social
structure goes through a difficult experience as well. ‘What mainly differentiates
the two couples in this section is social class. In the game of chess, we have moved
from the Queen to the Pawns, but find them similarly denying nature.’ 16 Although
there is no intimacy between the first couple whose names the reader cannot learn,
Lil and Albert’s marriage continues with five children and an abortion. Yet, this
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sexual relationship is the final remark for their intimacy since it is not possible to
mention any emotional or spiritual union. In order please her husband, Lil has to
‘make [herself] a bit smart’, ‘get [herself] some teeth’ for which Albert has already
paid and should give up ‘look[ing] so antique’ which shows her an old woman
although she is only thirty-one.17 All the reason behind this requirement is that
‘[…] poor Albert, / He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time.’ 18 In
other words, the initial promises of loyalty, love and responsibility are reduced
down to a simple sexual pleasure demanded by the husband as recompense after
his four-year service in the army. To make a comparison, the first couple is
obsessed with the unanswered question ‘“[…] What shall we do tomorrow? / What
shall we ever do?”’ and there is clearly no action in their case. 19 The action in the
relationship of the second couple, however, is just a sexual one. ‘Their sexual
union is only an escape from boredom into momentary pleasure, avoiding
procreation.’20 Lil avoids procreation which does not exist at all in the first couple
through abortion. In other words, sexual relationship and procreation serve as a
cover for the problems Lil and Albert experience. In this problematic environment
of the post World War I era full of rivalry between women to take Lil’s husband
away from her, the only solution she has is to change her physical appearance and
look more attractive. This means distancing herself from natural appearance.
If we move away from the queens to the pawns, we find low life
no more free or natural, equally obsessed with the denial of
nature, artificial teeth, chemically procured abortions […] and
Lil and Albert interested only in spurious ideal images of one
another.21
Therefore, it might be asserted that in both cases, the removal from nature with
its own inspiring elements is a common point. This isolation, however, does not
seem to solve any problems. Robert Langbaum says that
The Waste Land is about sexual failure as a sign of spiritual
failure. […] [U]pper class people who fail in sex not because
they are practicing Christian abstinence, but because of spiritual
torpor.22
Contrary to this argument, Andrew Gibson claims that ‘Eliot sees sexuality as
what is at odds with spirituality. […] During the course of his career, Eliot’s poetry
moves increasingly towards religious faith and away from any attachment to the
world.’23 Whether Eliot refers to religious or spiritual aspects does not matter since
this spiritual torpor in the upper class might be associated with boredom in lower
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class. Hence, ‘inadequacy of earthly love’ is on the foreground, because after all
‘this is a world of sterility.’24
One of the obvious reasons behind this sterility is again war. Lil’s husband
Albert is portrayed in a position that deserves every kind of satisfaction now that
he is a veteran soldier in everyday life. In fact, the rivalry between women who are
ready to please Albert, the hero of the war, appears to be the very beginning of this
problem.
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
[…] If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.25
This cult of war glorifies the soldiers who have been to the war and fought for
their country bravely. So, the reward they get in return for these sacrifices and
courage is to be desired by all women around them. Lil is desperate in this case and
there seems to be no choice other than complying with her husband’s wish and
continue their purely sexual relationship without any emotional or spiritual
involvement. The recurring expression in the final scene ‘HURRY UP PLEASE
ITS TIME’ might be interpreted as a last call to give an end to this form of living.
In other words, it is ‘a call to final Judgment.’ 26 Grover Smith asserts that ‘the cry
is an ironic warning to turn from this way of life. The pub itself recalls in the
context that the Grail is associated with drinking and feasting.’27 This emphasis on
time and change in the way of life is important when the social conditions in the
post-war era are taken into account.
The case of women characters in ‘A Game of Chess’ is also significant for the
discussion of the main themes. Saunders argues on the question of women and asks
some questions:
The Waste Land is, at the most immediately striking level, a sort
of collagè of human figures. […] So it is easy to list the women.
In order of appearance they could be picked out as Marie, the
Hyacinth girl, Madame Sosostris, the Woman-with-hairbrush,
Philomel, Lil and her ‘friend’[…]. Eliot’s female figures are not
only more numerous but also more vividly realized. Why? How
do they affect the reader and what do they contribute to the
poem?28
Within the context of this second part, it may be put forward that the common
contribution of all these women to the poem is their misery, which reflects the
atmosphere of this era in general. Moreover, the misery in women characters is
linked to their sexual and social identity as markers. The original title of this part
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might be evaluated in the light of this first woman in the room who is in a way
trapped in her loneliness without any soul mate to share her feelings and
experiences. Eloise Hay draws attention to the footsteps coming from the stairs in
this scene: ‘And other withered stumps of time / Were told upon the walls; staring
forms / Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed. / Footsteps shuffled on the
stair.’29 This sound comes from
outside the boudoir where the scene is set, outside their ‘room
enclosed’ – isolated and isolating. Again the stairway signals an
ascent just before plunging us into horror, crystallized in the last
lines of the scene.’30
The important point Hay underlines here is the missing line of the original
manuscript at the end of this room scene: ‘And we shall play a game of chess, /
The ivory men make company between us / Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a
knock upon the door.’31 This line shows that the pieces on the chessboard are the
only means that unite and connect this couple to each other in their loneliness and
isolation. According to Saunders, ‘the dressing room is revealed as richly
claustrophobic: shiny surfaces and glittering jewels infinitely reflect the flickering
light as if stating that this misery in the room is also infinite.’32 Smith, on the other
hand, resembles the lady to Dido: ‘Afflicted with boredom, she thinks, again with
unconscious irony, of rushing out and walking the street, much like the frenzied
Dido in her palace at Carthage when Aeneas abandoned her.’33 That is why the
woman says: ‘I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street / With my hair down,
so.’34
Finally, the image of Philomel is also important in terms of the poem’s attitude
towards sexuality and its relation to the society. Coote believes that
the metamorphosis of Philomel into a nightingale gave the world
the bird whose ‘inviolable voice’ has always been the symbol of
love and beauty – the core of lyric poetry. Now, in this time of
sullied myths, her call is heard only as an invitation to physical
sex. The ‘dirty ears’ suggest the mentality of people who
respond.35
In other words, despite this metamorphosis symbolizing the rape, the attitude
towards cruelty has not changed much. Particularly the expression ‘[…] still she
cried, and still the world pursues’ shows that people are still looking for this kind
of cruelty.36 Therefore, misery seems to be the fate for women and in particular the
mankind. Mayer sumps up with a concluding remark as regards the situation of
women through the journey of the quester image in the whole poem: ‘The ladies of
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Part II confirm that love is death: vampish allure and death (Cleopatra), rape and
death (Philomel), desertion and death (Dido), fertility and death (Lil/Lilith). He is
now prepared to be enlightened.’37
The most prominent symbol of this section, the game of chess, beside the
sexual violation, the fiery hair and fertility question is a common figure in the Grail
legend. Smith states that ‘in the Grail romances the hero occasionally visits a
chessboard castle where he meets a water maiden, symbol of love. In addition,
chess has often been a symbol, notably with Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists,
for man’s life and government in the world.’38 Therefore this game stands for quite
many images that are very closely linked to the other symbols which complete the
portrayal of the waste land. ‘Even putting aside the analogy between chess and the
combats in ritual, one may discern in Eliot’s use of the symbol a suggestion that
the people in the waste land belong to a drama they do not understand, where they
move like chessmen towards destinations they cannot see.’ 39 So, in this waste land,
people have no right to have a say on their own lives. It does not matter whether
they are the queen or the pawn as long as they are on the chessboard, because they
are destined to go through their fate determined by others.
In conclusion, ‘A Game of Chess’ presents a link between the first and the
other parts of The Waste Land. The infertility of the landscape as a major theme is
emphasized focusing on different social classes and individuals. As the milestone
of modernism in poetry, the poem includes references to other literary works and
implies various hidden meanings within this part as well. The emptiness of
marriage is extended to all social classes and the fact that love does not exist any
more is strictly emphasized. Lovelessness and infertility might be exchanged for
fertility and abortion in different social classes. Hence, what is left behind is a
totally dark, gloomy and sterile picture of the waste land. 40
Notes
1
John Xiros Cooper. The Cambridge Introduction to T. S. Eliot (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006), 71.
2
Ibid.
William Shakespeare. Antony and Cleopatra. The Arden Shakespeare: Complete Works. Eds. Richard Proudfoot, et. al.
(London: Arden, 2006), II.ii.200-211.
3
4
Thomas Stearns Eliot. The Waste Land. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams. 6th ed. Vol. 2.
(New York: Norton&Company, 1993), ll. 77-78.
5
6
Ibid., ll. 86-89.
Stephen Coote, ed., T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land (London: Penguin, 1988), 37.
7
Hugh Kenner. The Invisible Poet: T. S. Eliot (London: Methuen, 1966), 192.
8
Eliot, ll. 111-114.
Ibid., ll. 115-116.
10
Grover Smith, jr. ‘Memory and Desire: The Waste Land’, in Critical Essays on T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, eds. Lois A.
Cuddy and David Hirsch. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), 128.
9
11
Ibid., 128.
Eliot, ll. 121-123
13
Ibid., l. 126.
14
Ibid., ll. 108-110
15
Stephen Coote, ed. T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land (London: Penguin, 1988), 37.
12
16
Christopher Mills. ‘The Unity of The Waste Land’, in Critical Essays on The Waste Land, eds. Linda Cookson and Bryan
Loughrey. (Glasgow: Longman, 1988), 124.
17
Eliot, ll. 142, 144, 156.
Ibid., ll. 147-148.
19
Ibid., ll. 133-134.
20
Mills, Unity, 126.
21
Hugh Kenner. The Invisible Poet: T. S. Eliot (London: Methuen, 1966), 134.
18
22
Robert Langbaum. ‘New Modes of Characterization in The Waste Land’, in Eliot in His Time, ed. Walton Litz.
(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973), 113.
23
Andrew Gibson. ‘Sexuality in The Waste Land”, in Critical Essays on The Waste Land, eds. Linda Cookson and Bryan
Loughrey. (Glasgow: Longman, 1988), 107.
24
Mills, Unity, 64.
Eliot, ll. 148-148, 153-154.
26
John T. Mayer. ‘The Waste Land: Eliot’s Play of Voices’, in Critical Essays on T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, eds. Lois A.
Cuddy and David H. Hirsch. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), 272.
25
27
Smith, Memory, 129.
Claire Saunders. ‘Women and The Waste Land’, in Critical Essays on The Waste Land, eds. Linda Cookson and Bryan
Loughrey. (Glasgow: Longman, 1988), 47-48.
28
29
Eliot, ll. 104-107.
Eloisa Knapp Hay. ‘From T. S. Eliot’s The Negative Way’, in Critical Essays on T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, eds. Lois
A. Cuddy and David Hirsch. (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991), 196.
30
31
Eliot, ll. 137-138.
Saunders, Women, 49.
33
Smith, Memory, 129.
32
34
35
Eliot, ll. 132-133.
Stephen Coote, ed. T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land (London: Penguin, 1988), 36.
36
Eliot, l. 132.
Mayer, Play of Voices, 272.
38
Smith, Memory, 129.
39
Ibid.
37
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cooper, John Xiros. The Cambridge Introduction to T. S. Eliot. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006.
Coote, Stephen, ed. T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land. London: Penguin, 1988.
Eliot, Thomas Stearns. The Waste Land. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams. 6th ed. Vol. 2.
New York: Norton&Company, 1993.
Gibson, Andrew. ‘Sexuality in The Waste Land’. In Critical Essays on The Waste Land, edited by Linda Cookson and
Bryan Loughrey, 98-140. Glasgow: Longman, 1988.
Hay, Eloisa Knapp. ‘From T. S. Eliot’s The Negative Way’. In Critical Essays on T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, edited by
Lois A. Cuddy and David Hirsch, 183-201. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991.
Kenner, Hugh. The Invisible Poet: T. S. Eliot. London: Methuen, 1966.
Langbaum, Robert. ‘New Modes of Characterization in The Waste Land’. In Eliot in His Time, edited by Walton Litz, 104122. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1973.
Mayer, John T. ‘The Waste Land: Eliot’s Play of Voices’. In Critical Essays on T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, edited by Lois
A. Cuddy and David H. Hirsch, 265-278. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991.
Mills, Christopher. ‘The Unity of The Waste Land’. In Critical Essays on The Waste Land, edited by Linda Cookson and
Bryan Loughrey, 122-139. Glasgow: Longman, 1988.
Saunders, Claire. ‘Women and The Waste Land’. In Critical Essays on The Waste Land edited by Linda Cookson and Bryan
Loughrey, 42-58. Glasgow: Longman, 1988.
Shakespeare, William. Antony and Cleopatra. The Arden Shakespeare: Complete Works, edited by Richard Proudfoot.
London: Arden, 2006.
Smith, Grover, jr. ‘Memory and Desire: The Waste Land’. In Critical Essays on T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, edited by
Lois A. Cuddy and David Hirsch, 121-137. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991.
Ömer ÖĞÜNÇ is a research assistant in the Department of English Language and Literature at Hacettepe University,
Turkey. He is currently studying on his PhD Dissertation about Victorian novel and the Frankfurt School
40