An essay on the first stanza of A game of chess Essay

Through calling this poesy A patch of chess, Eliot continues with the theme he starts in The burial of the dead of mess who are trapped in a wastefulness and ma pouf no effort to escape it, so are hence stuck like a those in a check-mate during a real game of chess. The title is alike a reference to Women beware women by Middletone, a story in which a mother-in-law is playing chess, unaware that each guide she makes on the chess board is matched by a move in the seduction of her daughter-in-law by the duke in the story.The reference to Middletons Women beware women gives a depiction of passion and lust which Eliot uses as a contrast in the poem. In the first stanza, Eliot describes a inhabit that is elaborately decorated and make full moon with beautiful items such(prenominal) as, S levelbranched candelabra and Vials of ivory and coloured glass. Even though the room is decorated expensively, through listing the expensive items, he devalues them employ bathos and parodyi ng the womans efforts to create a room that is full of amazing items and ending up devaluing them.He compares the ladys room to Imogens bedroom in Cymbe decipher, through the mention of cupids, symbols of lamb. To stress the occurrence that although the woman has them, they are not full of life like the ones in Imogens bedroom. The woman in the room, a metaphor for people in the wasteland, is completely artificial and Eliot shows us that he disapproves of this through his comparison of her with people, such as Cleopatra, who are symbols of true art and passion.He writes, The Chair she sit in, like a burnished throne in reference to the line from Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra that says, The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne. By doing this, Eliot compares Cleopatra, described as being of infinite variety to the woman which stresses the concomitant that she is both artificial and sterile. Also, in the ladys room is an nonfunctional carv(d dolphin which Eliot mocks as t he dolphin was a medieval symbol of love and something Cleopatra used to describe Antony, yet the woman has it in her sterile room which is empty of love.Eliot feels that the womans existence violates that of those in myth. He shows this utilize references to Ovids story of Philomel. A mythical woman who was transformed into a nightingale, after her tongue was removed by her brother in-law king Tereus, to prevent her from telling others that he raped her. He tells of how she cried, Jug, jug. plainly how it travel on dirty ears because people in the wasteland cannot understand and thus continue to stay in their ways and therefore commit sins as bad as Tereus actions.Through the story, Eliot shows that true passion is not simple to obtain and like Tiresias, Philomel had to be violated before she could receive an unafraid voice. Not only is the room full of lifeless art, it is also an eerie and disturbing place. We are told that the room is infused with colour as it mentions, o cean wood fed with copper. A chemical reaction that, Burned squirt and orange. The use of a chemical reaction reminds us that the room is actually man-made and unnatural. This idea is re-enforced by, Strange and synthetic perfume. All of these things create a stuffy atmosphere, almost blinding because of the bright colours. The presence of the chemical suggests a lack of fresh air and suggests that this woman would be having trouble ventilation system another sign that she is barely existing and not truly alive. The incubus setting created in A game of chess, is an example of the public as Eliot sees it. A capitalist world filled with passionless people who he feels merely exist to fulfil their temporary and carnal desire. He criticises the woman as rather than trying to escape, she masks the atmosphere with her perfumes.He also makes references to the Sylvan scene from A paradise lost by Milton go with with the, Standards wrought with fruit vines to show what seems like an effort made by the woman to try to turn the room from hell into a paradise. But tells that she fails, beginning her descent into madness shown later in the poem. Eliot creates this room as a nightmare of the woman and then tells of how she is trapped in it, even though she tries to bring with the outside world so desperately that even, her hair, spreading out in fiery points, Glowed into words revealing her desperation to communicate with the outside world.