A Game of Chess by T.S Eliot ( Modern Literature)

Modern Poetry and Modernist Writing by Famous Modern Poet:

The Wasteland by T.S Eliot

A Game of Chess Short & Easy Summary

 

    ‘A Game of Chess’ is the second part of T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. Basically it has 2 different scenes, one of an upper class girl waiting in a lavishly decorated room for her lover, and the second of middle class girls sitting in a bar, discussing their friend’s marriage life. The women we see in both the settings are equally sad, unfulfilled and isolated. The first scene begins with a long description of a richly decorated room where a woman is sitting on a ‘Chair’ like a ‘burnished throne', waiting for her lover. There is a mirror decorated with wrought iron vines, a golden Cupid statue, seven-branched candelabra, painting of a forest scene depicting the transformation of Philomel, coffered ceilings and lavish decorations.

  When her lover comes, she complains that her nerves are bad and requests him to stay with her but he seems insensitive towards her. He considers this home as a rat’s alley ‘where the dead men lost their bones’. It is a reference to the trenches of WWI that were known to be filled with rats probably because of all the corpses stacked.    Rats' alley also points or gives an idea of a very unpleasant and rotten place. We can understand it as a poet’s way of showing the modern decay.   We also see a reference of Cleopatra in the beginning when Eliot describes the chair of woman beautifully as a burnished throne. This reference is important in a sense that Cleopatra did suicide due to the failure of love. This frustration of love left no hope in her life that eventually she decided to kill herself. The woman who is described here by the poet doesn’t do any such thing but there is a hint that her frustrations in love may lead her to commit suicide in her near future.  

  The very first scene makes us realize that money can’t buy happiness. The woman is rich but still she is unhappy and living a loveless life. The meaningless existence may cause a nervous breakdown and ruins one’s mental state. The poet describes that after WWI, people lost their faith in humanity and love. He paints a picture of modern world where there is no love, meaning, feelings, purity or spirituality. The line uttered by man, ‘Those are pearls that were his eyes’,  gives a strong suggestion that the man is scared by some kind of trauma. This shock or trauma has blocked much of his life and as a result he refuses to talk or think about it. Also the woman’s question, “what they are ever going to do” reinforces the idea that their lives are meaningless and they struggle to find ways to make their existence matter. With the luxurious life style, we see the sadness and meaningless in life, the downfall of morality, the artificiality, the preference of lust over love, lack of time, and the same boring dull routine. All these things together make one's life not worth living.

   The second scene takes place in a London bar where two ladies are drinking together speaking of a third lady named Lilith and her husband. Lil is a woman who is wife of Albert and now she has become very old and look. The reason before her poor appearance her birth to several children. She is the friend of the narrator whom she continuously blames for her ugly appearance and her careless attitude towards her husband. She blames Lil of her old appearance but Lil refuses that blame on her part by saying that she had given birth to many children and in one of her pregnancies she almost died. For escaping such situation again, she is using the abortion pills which have a very strong reaction on her health.  The friend further argues, “what you get married for if you don’t want children?” and also reveals her own deceiving character by saying “And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will” . It builds upon the idea of sex as the ultimate expression of manliness  and hints towards the useless nature of love. The bartender now practically yells at them “Hurry up please it’s time” . Too much repetition of this phrase tells about the lack of time in this modern world. The scene then ends with  a phrase from Hamlet, the last words of Ophelia, before she kills herself, ‘good night ladies, goodnight, sweet ladies, good night, good night.’  It is ironical in nature suggesting that death is the only escape for such a painful life we live.

     The poem as a whole sheds light on the relationships, especially sexual relationships after WW1. It portrays two very different women in the modern world and their unfulfilling relationships with men. The women they are associated with – Cleopatra in the case of the first, Ophelia in the case of the second – both took their own lives. The symbol of the game of chess is an agent of communication for lovers. The matters of the heart and soul, any kind of romance, or true love has diminished. It has been reduced to simply a game of chess, an emotionless game, where we need skills of logic and rational thinking. Love has no meaning here and lust is preferred over it. A single bad move will eventually impact the rest of our life making it meaningless, depressed, and suffocating to the point where death seems to be the only possible escape. Poet sheds light on the bitter realities of modern men and their world. For example the sexuality of woman has lost its charm and grace and lust is seen everywhere. It suggests that the boredom that is brought by the modern world has led men to their corruption in love and true feelings for women and also because of their high expectations from them. The lovers or men who were supposed to make these women happy, are the actual cause of their misery. As Charles Buxton said: “In life, as in chess, one’s own pawns block one’s way.  A man’s very wealthy, ease, leisure, children, books, which should help him to win, more often checkmate him.”