A Ruined Game of Chess

“A Game of Chess” represents a very important poetic experiment and experience, especially so for women. There are numerous subtleties throughout the latter half of “A Game of Chess” that not only contribute to the overall rhythm and tone of the work, but even more so, they act as an informative commentary on Eliot’s view of women.

In the beginning, Eliot portrays a high class, society woman. She is surrounded by exquisite things and is described as the picture of class.
“Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as “
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion; 85
In vials of ivory and coloured glass”


Yet, she sits waiting for her lover, and as the poem contnues, she becomes more and more nervous, more frantic. Eliot portrays a woman with all the makings to be successful and powerful, yet she is totally dependent on another. Her thoughts become neurotic and almost nonsensical as she begs him to take interest in her,
“What shall I do now? What shall I do?'
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?
'What shall we ever do?'”

Finally she makes plans to play a game of chess the following day, and with that she settles in, still nervous, but placated.

Next, Eliot introduces his readers to gaggle of lower class women, gathered in a barroom, chatting. With these women Eliot welcomed the end of the Victorian era, and with it, the puritanical views of the times. The women discuss a third friend, Lil, and her predicament with her husband. The woman recounts her conversation with Lil, and her chidings over Lil’s refusal to get false teeth and improve her appearance. Lil claimed that her ravaged appearance was the fault of medication she was taking.

“I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.) 160
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.”

The women finally leave to a chorus of good nights.

Though the women from the first half and second half represent females from entirely opposite ends of the spectrum, they are strikingly similar. In the first, the unnamed woman remains helpless to the whims of her lover; she sits consumed and frantically begging him for attention, while he remains disinterested. In the second, Lil has done everything to be a good wife. She has remained loyal while he served in the army, she maintained a home by herself and she has given him five children. However, the cost of these contributions has been her appearance, and because of this she still remains in an unstable position in her marriage. Both women can do nothing but wait and hope that their respective mates will return and still want them.

The very rhythm of the poem portrays the nervousness, and the beaten feelings of the women. In the first half, as the poem continues, the line become choppier and more broken up, with the sense of things falling apart. In the second half, the dialogue is continuously interrupted with the bartender’s cries of “HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME.” The reader feels rushed while reading their conversation, anxious for either the bartender to kick them up, or for their words to be cut short.

Eliot presents two separate types of women, one sterile and pitiful in her desperation, and the other sad and unheard in her complaints and sorrows. Both are damaged, and broken. Eliot is displaying a modern world in ruins, and these women are the wounded products of such a world. They are stuck in a game of chess, forced to remain only pieces for someone else’s game.