Sorry this is gonna be a few minutes late. This was almost the second week in a row i completely forgot to blog so please dont think i'm just neglecting it.
In section two of The Waste Land, Eliot mentions "the change of Philomel." Having never heard of Philomel, I looked it up, and it turns out that Philomela was raped by Tereus on a voyage to Thrace. I found this an interesting parallel to the woman portrayed later in the section. The woman has already had five children and is still being coerced by her husband to have more. Because of this, she is forced to take abortion pills in an attempt to stop her current pregnancy.
Now, what the implications of this are for the poem as a whole, i have absolutely no idea. But for the sake of the blog, I will venture to make a guess. The only logical conclusion I can come up with about this parallel is that is part of a social commentary on the times in which this poem was written. This was very much a time period where woman were still expected to be submissive and obedient to men as a whole, so for Eliot to draw this parallel in particular, i believe that he is disagreeing with that treatment. Philomela was indeed the princess of athens, so it would then be fair to assert that he would view this woman in the same way; as a princess who was altogether wronged.
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