discuss the concept of "wasteland" in relation to the works of th...

发布网友发布时间：2024-07-24 01:31

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热心网友时间：2024-07-24 02:17

The Waste Land is a poem written by T.S.Eliot on the theme of the sterility and chaos of the contemporary world. This most widely known expression of the despair of the post-War era has appeared over and again in the works of those writers in the twentieth-century American literature. Fitzgerald sought to portray a spiritual wasteland of the Jazz Age. Beneath the masks of relaxation and joviality， there was only sterility， meaninglessness and futility amid the grandeur and extravagance， there was a hint of decadence and moral decay. Hemingway， the leading spokesman of the Lost Generation， dramatized in his novels the sense of loss and despair among the post-war generation who are physically and psychologically scarred. Though disillusioned in the post-war period， he strove to bring about man's "grace under pressure" and tried to bring out the idea that man can be physically destroyed but never defeated spiritually. William Faulkner exemplified T.S. Eliot's concept of modern society as a wasteland in a dramatic way. He created his own mythical kingdom that mirrored not only the decline of the Southern society but also the spiritual wasteland of the whole American society. He condemned the mechanized， industrialized society that has dehumanized man by forcing him to cultivate false values and decrease those essential human values such as courage， fortitude， honesty and goodness.