"Game of Chess" reference

While this was touched upon in Friday’s class, I read the plot synopsis from a “New York Times” theater review of Middleton’s “Women Beware of Women” to fully understand Eliot’s “game of chess” referenced in line 137 of “The Waste Land”. Apparently, the chess scene is the most famous of the play where the protagonist distracts one person with chess while the other makes sexual advances on a third person. I hadn’t recognized the other sexual references in the poem like the Philomel painting in line 99 until I researched this one. The speaker’s mention of the Cupidon on the frame of the mirror too adds to the romantic theme. Similarly, the glittering jewels that “[rise] to meet” (line 84) the reflections of light from the sevenbranched candelabra as well as the perfume fumes and breeze that “ascended/In fattening the prolonged candle-flames” (line 91) is sexually suggestive as well. These references though are of negative sexual experiences—that of rape in Philomel’s case and of manipulation in the “game of chess.” The aforementioned adds further texture to the tone of the poem of gloom and echoes the relationship troubles of Lil and her husband Albert in the second half. Lil is being pressured by her husband and the speaker of the second part of “A Game of Chess” to fix her appearance to become more sexually desirable. Ironically though, Lil fell into this unattractive state because she attempted to abort their fifth child and has no desire to bear more of Albert’s children.