A Consideration of the Tension Between the Ordinary and the Extraordinary in the Works of T.S. Eliot and Jean Rhys

Abstract:

The following essay considers how the tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary manifested in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and Jean Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight. The relationship the authors had with their respective socio-political contexts provided a platform for the tension between the antonymic states to occur. To qualify this tension, comparisons are made between the ways in which the authors utilise time, language, and the socio-political context. This work identifies that both authors use time and language in such a way that it prompts a reconsideration of the understanding of these concepts and their effects on individuals operating within a society that is politically unstable and oppressive.

T.S. Eliot stated in ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ that the ‘poet must be very conscious of the main current’ which required the artist to understand that the ‘conscious present is an awareness of the past’ (Eliot in Gupta and Johnson, 2005, p.99). Eliot develops this by claiming that the historical sense ‘involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence’ (Eliot in Gupta and Johnson, 2005, p.98). The past and the present are, therefore, interconnected and both create the context of the present. With this in mind, the present in T.S. Eliot’s and Jean Rhys’s texts were created through the interrelationship between the past and contemporary conditions of the texts’ social, political and religious environments. Broadly, their milieu was shaped by the way that past socio-political ideologies conflicted with emerging new ones: leading ultimately to global conflict. The period then when the texts were written – leading up to and including the first years of the Second World War – could be defined by tension. Tension, in the texts, manifests when understanding of the ordinary and extraordinary shifts to the extent that the ordinary becomes the extraordinary. The context surrounding these texts is the catalyst in determining the shift between the antonymic states of the ordinary and extraordinary. To develop this concept, the essay will focus on – in conjunction with narrative technique and strategy – how the authors: use the concept of time; use language in the manner that questions its effectiveness and usage within established, ideological structures; and determine the ways in which the context of war permeates and gives expression to the tension between the ordinary and extraordinary.

     Eliot valorised and promoted the necessity for the artist to develop a ‘consciousness of the past’ (Eliot in Gupta and Johnson, 2005, p.100) and an awareness of it in the present moment. In Four Quartets one of the major themes throughout the poem is that of time, and it is through the concept of time that Eliot’s work is connected with past philosophical theory. The way Eliot expresses time in the poem reflects ideas previously discussed by Henri Bergson in ‘Matter and Memory’ (1896). Bergson notes that his own present moment ‘must be both a perception of the immediate past and a determination of the immediate future’ (Bergson in Gupta and Johnson, 2005, p.93). How the passing of time was understood was a real consideration for both writers, and it shows Eliot to be concerned with past theory and how it remains a concern in the present. It is this philosophical enquiry on the notion of time that shifts time from the ordinary to the extraordinary by showing a tension in how humanity perceives time. Eliot writes in the opening of ‘Burnt Norton’: ‘Time present and time past/Are both perhaps present in time future/And time future contained in time past’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.3). The paradoxes of time are emphasised from the beginning. The syntactical arrangement of the lines means that ‘time’ is repeated five times which represents the importance of thematic repetition throughout, and the relationships between the past, present and future are questioned. The free verse style complements the ‘unredeemable’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.3) and ungraspable nature of the understanding of time. The philosophical sentiment seen in the opening is later located in ‘East Coker’ within the narrator’s mind, implicating the reader to reflect similarly: ‘In my beginning is my end’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.13) and to frame the poem: ‘In my end is my beginning’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.20). The repetitious, philosophical enquiry regarding humanity’s relationship with, and understanding of, time illuminates the tension between ordinary perceptions of time and its extraordinariness, and by collapsing antonyms such as beginning and end, and past and future, the significance of the present moment is made.

     In comparison with Eliot, Rhys collapses definitive understanding of the ‘past, present and future’ by making them indistinguishable (Padley, 2016, p.226) and, consequently, highlights the present. Nardin states that in Good Morning, Midnight Sasha’s story is of ‘a woman who can neither move forward nor bring her life to an end’, she is arguably ‘trapped in what Rhys calls the “[n]o time region”’ (Padley, 2016, p.226). In Four Quartets, Eliot’s questioning of time is to discover ‘the intersection of the timeless moment’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.36) which ‘Christian mystics’ refer to as a ‘Union with God’ (Ricks and McCue, 2015, p.985) whereas Rhys’s consideration of time is to detail the societal trappings her character faces. The comparison is in the authors’ thematic use of time, but the contrast is in their reasons for using it. This sense of ‘no time’ (Padley, 2016, p.226) in Rhys gives expression to a tension as the concept and understanding of time shifts from ordinary linearity to the extraordinary ‘intermingling of different temporal periods’ (Padley, 2016, p.226). The disruption to linear narrative and detailing of social trapping is epitomised in Rhys’s use of rooms in the novel. For Gardiner, rooms detail ‘an elaborate social hierarchy of sex, class, and sexual respectability’ (Gardiner, 1982, p.245), augmenting patriarchal dominance and female subservience, and exemplifying Sasha’s interminable stasis. For example, the opening personification of the room which says ‘Quite like old times . . . Yes? No?’ coupled with the room’s description of ‘two beds, a big one for madame and a smaller one on the opposite for monsieur’ and the way that the ‘smell of cheap hotels’ is detectable (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.9), gives the reader access to the narrator’s continued, unchangeable existence, socio-economic and sexual status. The rhetorical nature to the question of ‘Yes? No?’ implies that Sasha’s current situation is a perpetuation of the ‘old times’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.9) and therefore dissolves the past into the present (Gardiner, 1982, p.235). Sasha’s present is contextualised by the ‘impasse’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.9) that is outside of the room, though reflected by Sasha’s existence inside. The only empowering feature is the larger bed ‘for madame’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.9) which attempts to create a private and protected feminine domain which, as Gardiner points out, is ‘illusionary’ as it is later to be inhabited by patriarchy (Gardiner, 1982, p.235). Time is disrupted further as the narrator later says how she has been ‘here for five days’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.9) so the reader’s sense of the present moment is called into question and shifted to another present. Rhys then, like Eliot, blurs strict definitions of time. Rhys’s blending of the past and present, creating a sense of ‘no time’ (Padley, 2016, p.226), exemplifies her character’s socially, impoverished stasis, which is created by the patriarchal society she is in. Time then is used to disrupt linearity. This creates tension between ordinary perceptions of time and the extraordinary time of the novel.

     The theme of time is important in Eliot’s Four Quartets. Its extraordinary reconsideration of what time is alerts the reader to another theme whereby the ordinary transitions to the extraordinary: the consideration and functionality of language. Eliot’s general uncertainties of whether ‘fiddling with words and rhythms is a justified activity’ (Ricks and McCue, 2015, p.892) punctuates his Four Quartets, providing a major meta-poetical theme. Eliot’s attempts to define the undefinable lead him to acknowledge that his poetry was ‘A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion/Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle/With words and meanings’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.15). The polysyllabic words ‘periphrastic’, ‘poetical’ and ‘intolerable wrestle’ weigh heavily, which emphasises Eliot’s difficulties with language and meaning – shifting ordinary understanding and usage of language to the extraordinary. This struggle can be seen also when Eliot tries to express the inexpressible: the still point of the turning world is ‘Neither flesh nor fleshless/Neither from nor towards . . . Neither ascent nor decline . . . There would be no dance, and there is only dance’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.5). Language then begins to strain when it is used to describe what is indescribable.

     The motif of dance here links with the first section of East Coker where Eliot uses it to concretise the cyclical nature of humankind (Davies and Fraser, 2016, p.165): ‘And see them dancing around the bonfire/The association of man and woman/In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.13/14). The dance represents the pattern of life which Eliot reflects: ‘The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated’ the older he gets (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.19); therefore, the patterned motif of dance symbolises his struggle with language as it is synonymous with living, and living is to struggle with language. This notion is augmented when Eliot clarifies how: ‘Words strain/Crack and sometimes break, under the burden/Under the tension, slip, slide, perish’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.8). The arrangement of words means that ‘strain’, ‘crack’, ‘break’, ‘slip’, ‘slide’, and the spondaic ‘perish’ are all stressed, and the onomatopoeic ‘crack’ and ‘break’ and the sibilant ‘slip’ and ‘slide’ indicate auditorily the limitations of language. The effectiveness of language is a concern for Eliot, and the manner in which he utilises its limitations as a theme signifies a shift from ordinary perceptions of language to the extraordinary – giving a platform for the tension between these two states.

     Rhys, like Eliot, uses language in a way that shifts perceptions from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Eliot signifies the very difficulty of expression, of attempting to describe ‘The stillness’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.8) of words where they attempt to reach the ‘intensity at which language strives to become silence’ (Ricks and McCue, 2015, p.922). He uses this concept to express the point in life ‘Between un-being and being’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.8), that which is not temporally bound but spiritual (Davies and Fraser, 2016, p.170). Rhys uses language to exemplify her character’s social trappings, and by doing so gives substance to what Sasha is denied, or unable to express within established, ideological structures. This gives a sense of the way language is used extraordinarily. Gardiner states how ‘men own language’ and in that way that ‘man denies her [Sasha] the freedom of language and therefore the freedom to define herself’ (Gardiner, 1982, p.239). Sasha consequently lacks the ability to exist in a definable way: she is somewhere between being ‘rescued’ and ‘half-drowned’ and being ‘a bit of an automaton, but sane, surely’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.10). The use of ‘surely’ extends the ambiguity and restraints on her existence as she is not wholly sure of her own sanity. This type of existence without language and freedom is reaffirmed when a relative says to her: ‘Why didn’t you drown yourself . . . in the Seine?’ which signifies to Sasha ‘the real end’ of her (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.37). Gardiner qualifies this end as a ‘social injunction’ that she is to ‘disappear’ and ‘be annihilated’ (Gardiner, 1982, p.239). The same relative denies the way that she wants to exist and, consequently, stamps patriarchal authority over her, through improper use of her name when he calls her ‘Sophia, full and grand’ instead of Sasha (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.37).

     Focussing on language, who monopolises it and who is denied it, qualifies Sasha’s existence within patriarchal ideology through the tension between ordinary and extraordinary use of language. This extraordinary nature to Sasha’s restricted freedom and restricted use of language is epitomised when Rhys first clarifies how Sasha’s words have ‘chains round’ their ‘ankles’ that ‘every word’ has been ‘tied up, weighted, chained’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.88). It is further supported when Rhys denies her the ability to use language to express herself entirely: Sasha wanted to say to Mr. Blank ‘who represents Society’ that he has the right to lodge her ‘in a small, dark room . . . to harass’ her ‘with worry and monotony and unsatisfied longings’ but he hasn’t the right ‘to ridicule’ her; but, instead, she acknowledges that she didn’t say any of this (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.25/26). Eliot and Rhys both utilise language in such a way that it shifts from ordinary perceptions and understandings to the extraordinary. The contrast is in the fact that it is within different contexts: Eliot’s use of language is a way of developing a central theme of inexpression to express spiritualism whereas Rhys uses language to expose the central theme of patriarchy and social restrictions that are placed on women.

     Context in Eliot’s Four Quartets demonstrates a tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary. The ordinary way of living shifts to the extraordinary due to the context of war. Eliot writes ‘Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended/Are removed, destroyed, restored’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.13). The caesura usage in the lines causes the reader to pause and reflect on the tension of the extraordinary which is the result of conflict on the landscape. The repetitive process of destruction and renewal inherent in these lines is given a trajectory which ultimately leads back to earth: ‘Old stone to new buildings, old timber to new fires/Old fires to ashes and ashes to the earth’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.13). The earth then is temporal, and it contains the ‘flesh, fur and faeces/Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.13). The alliterative ‘f’ sounds and the rhyming ‘beast’ and ‘leaf’ combined, syntactically signifies the temporality of man on earth, living in a repetitive cycle of destruction and renewal in spiritually thwarted conditions.

     To combat the extraordinary, spiritually thwarted, conditions, Eliot believes that ‘You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy . . . You must go by the way of dispossession’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.17). The repeated ‘You must go’ in these lines makes the narrator’s tone emphatic and consequently Eliot’s implication that the way for humanity to go is towards a ‘deeper communion’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.20) (Davies and Fraser, 2016, p.167). The antidote to the tension from the shift of the ordinary to the extraordinary, due to the context of war, is Christianity. If humanity has faith in Christianity, then everyone will be ‘All touched by a common genius/United in the strife which divided them’ and, therefore, ‘All shall be well, and/All manner of things shall be well’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.40). The anaphora of ‘All’ in these lines is indicative of Eliot’s belief in the power of Christianity reaching everyone; the conjunction ‘and’ leads to an enjambement: a smooth transition that complements and reaffirms the sentiment that all – and all manner of things – shall be well (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.40). The context of war and dilution of Christianity amongst the population caused by secularism and individualism (Davies and Fraser, 2016, p.171), provides tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary. The extraordinary context usurps the ordinary and Eliot’s ameliorative response to this tension is Christianity.

     The context in Rhys’s novel allows for the shift from the ordinary to the extraordinary to take place as it does with Eliot: the social environment places both narrators under tension. The tension that Eliot’s narrator feels is due to the context of war, observable in the lines ‘Dust in the air suspended/Marks the place where a story ended’ (Eliot, 2001, [1944], p.37) – a reflection on the results of bombing in the blitz (Ricks and McCue, 2015, p.1002), and Eliot utilises Christianity as a panacea to this type of extraordinary iniquity. In contrast, the social context of Rhys’s narrator is subject to an existence that has no ameliorative measures or no way of getting back to the ordinary from the extraordinary: resulting in a continued state of tension. This tension is caused by not only Sasha’s incongruity with society because she ‘despises normality’ (Kennedy in Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.x) but also because of the life she has chosen to live. This life, however, is moulded by the flaws ‘of the society around her’ (Kennedy in Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.xi). Therefore, Sasha’s existence has shifted from the ordinary to the extraordinary where ‘drinking’ herself ‘to death’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.37) seems the only thing left to do.

     The tension caused by living extraordinarily means that happiness is unattainable for Sasha, and she loses all identity: ‘I have no pride – no pride, no name, no face, no country. I don’t belong anywhere’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.38). The repeated negatives emphasise her pessimistic, psychological state, and from the narrow, internal description of her having ‘no pride’ to the broad, external ‘I don’t belong anywhere’ suggests that her social position is unredeemable. Sasha’s pessimistic state coupled with her ostracism from society, which stems from the tension of her extraordinary lifestyle, means that she qualifies her life as being a ‘poor devil without any friends and without any money’ where, on the street, ‘dark houses’ watch you like ‘monsters . . . Frowning and leering and sneering’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.28). The rhyming of ‘leering’ and ‘sneering’ here helps to dramatise the monsters’ grimaces. Without social or economic means, Rhys’s narrator is condemned by society which causes her extraordinary psychological state. Sasha is, therefore, subservient to patriarchy because of its dominion over money: she peels Enno an orange rather than telling him to ‘Go to hell’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.108) because he has economic means; and she is sexually acquiescent ‘For the last time. . . .’ (Rhys, 2000, [1939], p.159) at the novel’s end. The ellipsis highlights the ambiguity of such a statement and implies that it is not the last time. Rhys’s context means that social and economic restraints thwart Sasha’s existence. Sasha is marginalised and because of the extraordinary context it means that she lives an extraordinary life: leading to socially incongruous habits and behaviours.

     Tension arose between the ordinary and the extraordinary in Eliot’s and Rhys’s texts because a shift occurred between those two conditions: the ordinary became the extraordinary. This is witnessed in the way that the authors used the concept of time, language, and the context of war. Eliot’s processing of time and Rhys’s collapsing of time to ‘no time’ (Padley, 2016, p.226) means that readers are prompted to consider their relationships with time – thus elevating the ordinary concept of time to the extraordinary. Like time, language, and how it is used, in the authors’ work elevates it from the ordinary to the extraordinary: Eliot questions his understanding of it and its difficulty in attempting to explain the unexplainable, reflecting his ambition to exist between states which, for him, equals a unification between himself and God; Rhys uses language in an equally extraordinary way but to express her narrator’s socially subservient position: stripping Sasha of the capacity to express herself in the realm of patriarchy allows Rhys to express Sasha’s socially impoverished position. The authors use of language shifts it from ordinary understanding and usage to the extraordinary. Finally, the context of both works takes the narrators from ordinary circumstances to the extraordinary. The extraordinary context of Eliot’s Four Quartets means that the author concludes that Christianity is an ameliorative measure for living in such conditions as war and rising secularist ideologies; Rhys’s context in Good Morning, Midnight means that her narrator is defined by the patriarchal society: her reactionary behaviour to this ideology leads her to live extraordinarily. In both works then the tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary is so great that the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.

Thank you for reading one of my essays on literature. I hope you enjoyed it. Please feel free to comment and check out my other writing across my Substack.

Bibliography

Bergson, H. [1907] ‘Creative Evolution’ in Gupta, S. and Johnson, D. (ed.) A Twentieth-Century Literature Reader: Texts and Debates (A300 Reader), Routledge in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, The Open University pp 90-92

Bergson, H. [1896] ‘Matter and Memory’ in Gupta, S. and Johnson, D. (ed.) A Twentieth-Century Literature Reader: Texts and Debates (A300 Reader), Routledge in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, The Open University pp 92-94

Davies, J. (2016) ‘Interpreting T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets’ in Tickell, A. (ed) Movements 1870-1940 (A335 Book 2), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp 147-178

Eliot, T.S. (2001), London, Faber and Faber Limited

Eliot, T.S. [1919] ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ in Gupta, S. and Johnson, D. (ed.) A Twentieth-Century Literature Reader: Texts and Debates (A300 Reader), Routledge in association with The Open University, Milton Keynes, pp 96-103

Gardiner, J. (1982) ‘Good Morning, Midnight; Good Night, Modernism’. Boundary 2, 11(1/2), pp 233-251 [online]. Available at: www.jstor.org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/stable303027

Padley, S. (2016) ‘Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight: rediscovery and re-evaluation’ in Tickell, A. (ed) Movements 1870-1940 (A335 Book 2), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp 217-241

Padley, S. (2016) ‘Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight: intertextuality and critical reception in Tickell, A. (ed) Movements 1870-1940 (A335 Book 2), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp 247-273

Ricks, C. and McCue, J. (eds.) (2015) ‘The Poems of T.S. Eliot’ London, Faber and Faber

Rhys, J. (2000) ‘Good Morning, Midnight’ London, Penguin Modern Classics