Objective Correlative in English Literature

The sentence “He is Meer Zafar” evokes in the mind of readers a sense that “He” is a betrayer. It is because betrayal is associated with the name of Meer Zafar who betrayed Nawab Siraj-Ud-Daula in the historic “Fight of Polashi” in 1757 in Bangladesh. “Meer Zafar” is, here, an objective correlative for betrayal. So objective correlative is an image which suggests a particular emotion associated with it. The poet’s function is to find a dramatic situation that would externalize his own emotions and thus give them universal stature, which is best expressed by the term “Objective Correlative”. It means “a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion, such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.” According to G.S. Fraser, Objective Correlative of an emotion would be something actually there corresponding to our feelings that would arouse similar feelings in most constituted people. The responses of the poet should be responses of a defined situation, which may be complex. Here, the point, most noteworthy, is that the poet does not directly express emotion. So we can surmise that, “Objective Correlative”, a term used by T.S. Eliot in his critical essay “Hamlet and His Problems”, has now gained a tremendous critical currency and importance. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” demonstrates the view best. Waste Land is an objective correlative for spiritual death, rose is for love, and nightingale’s song is for suppressed agony.