『원로 정치인』에 드러난 엘리엇의 정치의식 : 심리학적 관점

Initially this writing was motivated by Professor Robert Grotjohn’s response to my writing on T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and John Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.” He objects that Christianity is not to blame for being a helping hand for the imperialistic expansion and exploitation in the previous centuries. I would agree with him religiously but we need to call attention to their societal functions in dealing with long-time established institutions like Christianity. Christianity cannot have opposed the collective interest of the society it belonged to, especially in its critical moments. It may also be pointed out that Christianity has imposed its metaphysical and hierarchical views and values on its subjects, naturally crippling rational reasonings and persecuting non-followers in most vehement forms and scales. Likewise, the salvation or maturity the protagonist of The Elder Statesman has allegedly reached leaves many problematic issues, seen from psychological and feministic perspectives. Eliot attempts rather a sudden resolution to the tension accumulated up until the near end of the drama. The protagonist in the drama faces a peaceful and justifiable final phase of his life. But a psychological approach would not lead to an identical conclusion. His reconciliation and expiation appear only as superficial or even hypocritical; he does not recognize friendship and love in a psychologically convincing way. His justification for his faults in youth is hard to agree to and he fails to recognize his own dark side of existence and integrate feminine elements in his psyche. Jungians would take this failure as deviation from the course leading to the psychological maturity, individuation.