“A Game of Chess” Leads to Mental Frustration

Throughout T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Waste Land,” one gets a sense of suppression with nowhere to escape. In the second section of the poem, “A Game of Chess”, one is able to get a clear distinction of women’s weakness and the power men have over them. Even though the men do not physically abuse the women, they mentally abuse them for the women are only wanted for the idea of sex itself and receive no affection. This gives the women an obscured sense of worth and are considered suppressed in the notion that no matter what social class they pertain to, they will never escape the influence of man.

The first half of the section concentrates on a woman from a high social class who is dependent on her lover even though he does absolutely nothing to demonstrate his interest in her. At first glance, she seems to have quite the life for she is described to live in such luxury. However, when one takes a step into her thoughts, one is able to see the emotional frustration the woman is going through. She lives in isolation and her lover is her only interaction that she has but communicating is the last thing he wants to do with her. As a result, he is not torturing her physically but is torturing her mentally. After having sex, she states,

“My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.

“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?

“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”  (111-114)

Even though her lover doesn’t speak, one is able to get a sense of their interaction within the quote. Instead of caring for her well being and asking what is wrong, he simply repeats that her nerves are bad and she therefore feels the need to reaffirm the state of her nerves. The fact that she has to tell him to stay means that he doesn’t feel any real love toward her but is rather solely there for sex. This idea is emphasized as she further states that he never speaks or tells her what he is thinking. This tortures her mind and she becomes frustrated and in despair that he cannot share his innermost feelings and feels that he only uses her for sex.

The idea of mental torture continues toward the second half of the section with a lower class woman, Lil, who’s husband, Albert, just came back from World War I. Despite being told from a third party observer, Lil’s mental frustration is still recognized through not only by how she is treated by her husband but also by the mentality of the woman telling the story. The narrator states,

“He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.

And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,

He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,

And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.” (146-149)

This emphasizes the importance of physical appearance, which Lil apparently cannot uphold to the standards that her husband and the woman deem as desirable. However, they fail to take into account that she has given birth to five children and had to take pills to get an abortion that damaged her physical appearance. Yet, her husband has been gone for four years and all he wants is to have sex. If she does not “give it [to] him, there’s others [that] will.” This leads Lil to receive mental abuse not just from her husband but also from others around her. No matter what she does, she is still being punished.

Both women face mental abuse from the men that they love for the men are merely interested in the sex aspect of the relationship rather than the emotional aspect of the relationship. This leads both women to torture themselves into either wondering why the man cannot communicate or what the point of enduring such torture is for. The women ultimately gain a meaningless sense of self for they are constantly being suppressed due to man's control.