Spiritual Crises of Human Life - Book Report/Review Example

Through a detailed comparison of the texts, "The Waste Land" by T.S.Eliot, and "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, show how they present a spiritual crisis and its consequences. Introduction: This essay is focused on the analysis of T.S. Eliot's Waste Land and Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness and would discuss the themes of these two very important literary masterpieces of the 20th century to show the spiritual crises of human life and existence and its consequences considering cultural, moral and social perspectives. The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot The Waste Land by T.S Eliot is one of the most influential modern poems of the 20th century. Although known for its satire and prophecy, it seems to suggest meaninglessness in life, existence and fall of civilization. The waste land is characteristically unconventional and controversial following none of the defined poetic styles and the subject matter seems to have transcended cultures and limits of time and place. With strong historical and literary allusions, the poem could be considered as religious but seems to have gone beyond religious connotations to explain the search for meaning in human existence. The poem deals with the ultimate journey of the human soul searching for its own redemption and release from the meaninglessness of life. The spiritual crisis of human life and existence is evident from Eliot's poem as the focus of his poetry. The consequences of a spiritual crisis could only be understood comparatively considering other poems and writers of his time and the general influence of this pattern of thinking on literature and life in general. The Waste Land begins with the famous first line, 'April is the cruelest month' and ends with 'shantih, shantih, shantih'. Despite its historical allusions, the poem is contemporary as it does not seem to follow the traditional approaches to poetry. This is particularly evident from the first part of the Waste Land which is divided into five parts including The Burial of the Dead, A Game of Chess, the Fire Sermon, Death by Water, and What the Thunder Said. The changing themes and subject matter of the poem seem to be overlapping and is obvious from the first part of the Burial of the Dead (from Eliot, 1922). April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch. 12 And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's, My cousin's, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. In this first part, the strain of thoughts have moved quite dramatically from an association of seasons and activities and very unique descriptions of 'winter kept us warm' and 'summercoming overwith a shower of rain' to memories of childhood and activities as children. The element of human freedom and search for freedom of the soul is indicated in the line 'And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free'. The five parts of the poem represent the Greek classical elements of fire, water, air and earth and show the close connection of nature to human search for meaning in existence. The significance of the waste land is that the sterility and futility of life is realised strongly and described blatantly. Eliot's Waste Land is considered as the most representative poem of the 20th century representing the crossroads of human existence. The poem is controversial and continues to puzzle and inspire and despite the depth and the difficult allusions in the poem, it requires continual reading that can provide newer insights. The poem offers an insight into the modern world and modern life in which the certainties have disappeared giving way to meaningless relationships, activities, aims, death and destruction leading to a profound crisis in the search for real meaning in existence and marked by an absence of spiritual or cultural support. Along with its elements of pessimism, in which the meaninglessness and futility of human existence is highlighted, there are optimistic pictures and possibilities of the life which has passed and which was characterised by meaning and fertility and it is hoped that life will return to the previous state of wholeness and fertility. The poem seems to have its obscurities based strictly on the obscurity of human existence. The poem is a string of unrelated events and fragmented texts and documentations along with allusions and metaphors and just as life is seen as meaningless and a myriad of fragmented events rather than a whole structured existence with definite purpose and direction, the poem seems to flow without a direction and has many disjointed events and thought processes that highlight human spiritual crisis through these fragmented experiences and representation of cultures. This is the modern waste land, a series of fragmented, broken disjointed realities that seem to be unrelated and meaningless. The waste land is about the cultural, social and psychological ruin but above all it shows the deep spiritual death and destruction within society. What seem to have remained now are cultural fragments and artefacts and it is impossible to reassemble the pieces of broken culture, relationships and experiences. Despite the disorder and inherent fragmentation, the sense of fragmentation in every human being seems to have been encompassed within a greater unity and underlying order and restoring this order may be one of the directions that the poem can lead to. In this sense the poem is not chaotic and doesn't lose its purpose but shows that beneath the textual fragmentation and random arbitrary thought process, there is a connection and underlying patterns that point to a sense of continuity between what was before and what will come later. Eliot uses his poem to highlight the rise and decline past cultures and civilisations and despite the destiny of all cultures in subsequent decline, there is hope in their rebirth and restoration. Although the modern waste land highlights the spiritual uncertainties and complete absence of spiritual purpose in life, there is still hope for sustaining spiritual faith in life. Eliot's main purpose and main motivation of this poem seem to be spiritual and even though there are little hopes of recovering the deep spiritual belief in humans that would give more meaning and purpose in life, there seems to be still some hope of return to some kind of spiritual restoration. The ending of the poem with shantih show that peace will prevail and possibly the passing of the waste land will be a lesson by itself for through fragmentation and discordance, human life would finally find spiritual meaning, purpose and would be able to overcome a culture of alienation, purposelessness and nothingness. Possibly the cultural, social and spiritual crisis of the post world war era when people and civilisation had to literally rise from rubbles have inspired Eliot to compose the thematic content of the waste land. The waste land did not follow the traditional structure of a poem but has set its own structure and standards and in fact laid down the foundation of the modern poetry which widely influenced all later poetry in the 20th century. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad If T.S. Eliot's the Waste Land represents a major shift in forms of poetry and sets the path for modern 20th century poetry, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is an exemplary literary classic that seem to have set the trend for modern 20th century prose. Conrad's Heart of darkness is the finest literary classic of this time and represents the cultural issues and problems of imperialism. Written in 1902, it is in the form of a novella and represents a story told by the narrator Marlow who tells the story of his experiences along the Congo river with a Belgian trader Kurtz. Marlow faces the trader Kurtz. The story begins there and the theme of the book revolves around the notion of darkness, cannibalism, barbarism and decline of civilization. The issues relate to spiritual darkness as well and show the major conflicts of good and bad, between colonization and slavery and suggest that darkness and gloom could be found even within supposedly civilized societies. The title of the book as heart of darkness and relating Africa as representing this barbarism or darkness could often lead people to believe that Conrad is himself a racist. In the story, Marlow goes to meet the people of a Belgian trading company that seem to treat natives as savages and the native people are overworked and suffer ill-treatment in the hands of the Belgian managers. The native inhabitants are expressed as barbaric savages who need to be civilized and who seem to be in utter darkness in the interiors of Africa. This description though apparently racist may only have aimed to expose the nature of brutality in these regions which Conrad had seen when he lived and worked in the region and the darkness refers to the spiritual and moral gloom that seemed to have characterized these experiences. The novella seems to have exposed the apparent naivet of Europeans as well as barbarism of Africans. The experiences of Marlow exposed not only the hypocrisy of imperialism and the experiences of native inhabitants being subject to torture, cruelty and slavery, but also show that in the name of trade and civilization, violence and intimidation seem to characterize any control of the natives. When Marlow goes in search of the trader Kurtz, he travels deep into the heart of the Congo which seems to be both a psychological and physical journey and provides many socio-cultural and spiritual insights to Marlow. Heart of Darkness shows the fabric that seems to hold civilizations together seem to have underneath it a brutal horror and a picture of cruelty, intolerance and hypocrisy of imperialism. Considered as a masterpiece of 20th century literature, Conrad's Heart of darkness also represents and exposes a wide spiritual crisis especially through Socio cultural perceptions. Despite Conrad's intentions of actually exposing the atrocities in the Congo region and the double faced ness of imperialism, several critics have considered that Conrad seemed to have some racist bias against people of Africa. The depiction of the Africans as primitive or uncivilized seems to have hinted on the inferiority of the African people. What seems to have been the underlying factor in Conrad's book is the philosophy of sanity and restraint as opposed to using primitive and destructive instincts. Thus like Eliot's waste land which exposes the general spiritual crisis of human life yet show the underlying order in human existence and a general search for purpose in the future, Conrad exposes the cultural atrocities as also representing spiritual crises and provides the basis of civilization, control and restraint as possible solutions to overcoming the social and cultural crises. Barnett (1996) suggests that the commentary and interpretation of the textual position towards imperialism and human condition in general has been largely overlooked due to gendered consideration within the texture of the narrative. Wylie (2005) shows how the otherness of human interaction and savagery have been intensified especially within the colonialist cultures and in this sense Conrad could be explained and interpreted in various ways. Conrad exposes and examines the hypocrisy and moral confusion in human civilization and asks how moral standards or values can judge or shape social and cultural actions and perceptions. The relationship between individual and society is seen as a dynamic pattern of interaction between social and psychological factors that should be shaped by moral values although in this case the contrary is seen and described. Conrad's own dreadful experiences of the treatment of the natives like savages may have triggered him to write on the atrocities committed in the region although it seems to be psychological journey as well as the deeper divisions of society in terms of psychological division through rather than strict physical divisions are also exposed in the story either intentionally or unintentionally. The moral values seemed to have been replaced by social perceptions as well as cultural divisions and the hypocrisy of society and especially civilized societies show that the social and cultural changes have led to a severe crisis in moral values and understanding. Conclusion: Unlike Eliot's poem which exposes the general meaninglessness of life and existence and shows that through fragmentation and purposelessness, the meaning may be ultimately attained, Conrad seemed to have focused on the more cultural implications of meaning in life and the moral values and social perceptions associated with seeking the purpose of life. Both Conrad' s Heart of Darkness and Eliot's the Waste Land , represent the best and new of 20th century literature one in poem and the other in prose form. Both the texts show the changing pattern of human existence bringing in questions of spiritual crises and social and moral values to define and understand human existence either within the context of one's individual life goals and purpose or as a collective social being contributing to the growth of civilization in general. This discussion showed the importance of going beyond personal, social and cultural perceptions to understand the deeper meaning posed by the spiritual search through emphasis on moral values either in the context of looking for a meaning in life or in the context of understanding experiences in life or a combination of both. Bibliography Farrow S. (1996) T.S. Eliot's communicational scepticism: a wittgensteinian reading of the waste land Language and Communication, Volume 16,Number 2, pp. 107-115(9) Kappanyos A. (2000) Forms of Irony: Modern and Post-Modern Neohelicon, Volume 27,Number 2, pp. 261-267(7) Carabine K. (2002) Envisioning Africa: Racism and Imperialism in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'. The Yearbook of English Studies, Volume 32,Number 1, pp. 310-312(3) Wylie, Lesley (2005) Hearts of Darkness: The Celebration of Otherness in the Latin American novela de la selva Romance Studies, Volume 23,Number 2, pp. 105-116(12) West R. (1997) Christa Wolf Reads Joseph Conrad: Storfall and Heart of Darkness German Life and Letters, Volume 50,Number 2, pp. 254-265(12) Barnett C. (1996) 'A Choice of Nightmares': narration and desire in Heart of Darkness Gender, Place and Culture - A Journal of Feminist Geography, Volume 3,Number 3, pp. 277-292(16) Eliot, T.S. (1922) The Waste Land, retrieved on 2006-04-18 from http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/ also with notes in, http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, 1902, retrieved on 2006-04-18, from http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/526 Read More