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Literary Analysis – The Theme of Sexuality The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot’s demonstrates a religious sentiment with regards to the rise in lack of restraint in sexuality. There is a morose overtone from the poem’s title in relation to its near nonsensical conclusion from the description offered by Eliot for this enthusiastic but hauntingly well-known wasteland. It seems like the sexual revolution resulted as a response to a repressive society in Victory for very many past generations. This growing trend in immorality prompted Eliot to write this poem as way of shading some light on it.
In his poem, Eliot offers critiques on various issues in the European society; however, one thing that he finds sex as an easy aspect of his assault on society to unpack and recognize, maybe, he intentionally does this. Eliot makes cultural references on culture and gender; and show overwhelming concern of spirituality; however, sex is still seen to be at the center of the theme in The Waste Land. The English line “The cruelest month is April, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land . (1l. 1-3)” already tries to describe a setting in the month of April, but quickly takes on the act of breeding, which entails sex, menacingly.
James Henry’s short story, Daisy Miller, is also an eye catching story that uses illness to illustrate sexual social disfavor and contamination, despite making casual references to illness. Daisy suffers from malaria, while Mr. Miller and the rest of the family ail from a common gastric ailment referred to as dyspepsia. Daisy’s malaria was simply used by the author to literalize the infection she supposedly had, which is a kind of fever that is thought to have resulted from loose sexual encounters with Italian men.
However, she later succumbs to “Roman fever”. This story by James shows how ancient societies viewed sexuality as a type of disease, that if is past a given point, they consider it fatal. The doctor that diagnoses her, Winterbourne, describes Daisy as a “a clever reprobate, a young lady whom gentlemen need not to be at pains to respect anymore” (James 38)F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, is a story that describes the disenchanted between a man and a woman. He portrays America in the early 1920s as an era of decayed moral and social values, evidenced by extreme greed, empty search of pleasure, and cynicism.
Just as in James Henry’s Daisy Miller, The Great Gatsby also views women as fools of whom men do not need to respect, “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald 53)In Dersch, analysis of the book The Open Boat, by Stephen Crane, emotions and actions of four men who came face to face with death is vividly displayed. Based on a setting at sea, Stephen Crane, through the symbolism of the story, demonstrates the conflict of man with a disordered, an indifferent nature that is mindless of humanity’s quality of actions or their desires.
All the men did not know the worth of their lives, but , they only knew that they had to survive, “None of the men knew the sky’s color…however, they knew the color of the sea”(Dersch 65).Works CitedDersch, Timo. Stephen Crane ́s “The Open Boat ” - A Naturalistic Short Story: Fact Or Fiction? Berlin Heidelberg: GRIN Verlag, 2010. Print.Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land and Other Poems. London: Broadview Press, 2010. Print.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London: Interactive Media, 2012. Print.James, Henry.
Daisy Miller and Other Stories. Stilwel, KS: Digireads.com Publishing, 2008. Print.
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