The Waste Land: T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot projects several levels of modern experience in ‘The Waste Land’. These are related to various symbolic Waste Lands in modern times such as
( a ) The Waste Land, religion where there are but no water
( b ) The Waste Land of spirit, where all moral springs are dried up and
( c ) The Waste Land of the reproductive instinct where sex has become a means of physical gratification rather than a source of regeneration.
The Wasteland is mainly concerned with the theme of barrenness in the mythical Waste Land of the twentieth century. The land has lost its fertility. Nothing useful can grow in it. The animals and crops have no rejuvenated land for reproductive function. The curse on the land and its master, the Fisher king is linked to the quest for the Holy Grail. Death, life-in-death and death- in- life are some of the other themes of the poem. Life devoid of meaning is a kind of spiritual death. Eliot thinks that Easter Philosophy could possibly redeem Europe from its corruption and degradation.
The poem Waste Land consists of five parts: 1 . The Burial of the Dead, II A Game of Chess, III The Fire sermon, IV. Death by Water and V. What the thunder said. All the parts, though separate, has made them into a unified poem. What is the most important feature is the rich use of myth, imagery and symbolism. The first line of the ‘The Waste Land’- ‘April is the cruelest month’, is an inversion of popular myth that April is a time of warmth, love and joy. A way of life or survival by instinct is contrasted by Eliot. April is the popular symbol of growth and regeneration. The symbolism of fertility and sterility is noticed in the images of the Hyacinth Girl. Madame Sosostris, the Phoenician sailor, and the corpse in the garden, which are linked to speculations on life, life in death, death-in-life, decay and renewal, memory and desire. The fertility theme is projected through the symbolism of spring rain, wet hair and vegetation and flowers. At the same time, it is contrasted with the dryness of the arid landscape. The biblical allusion to the old Testament, Ezekiel again highlights the barrenness of the Waste Land”
The two episodes of love in “the Burial of the Dead” are studies in contrast, symbolizing the gulf separating the ecstasy of love from the frustration. The Sweeney image stresses the mental paralysis of humanity. The prophesying Tarot cards of Madame Sosostris marks the decline of values in the modern European society. The image of the drowned phoenician sailor is linked with the allusion to “the Tempest” of Shakespeare. The symbolic pattern of these images is repeated in the fourth part of ‘The Waste Land’ – ‘Death by Water’. By choosing the title of the second part ‘A Game of Chess’ Eliot suggests that the relationship of men and women are like the moves and counter moves in a subtle game of chess, both parties trying to overcome each other. ‘The fire Sermon’ provides some visual images of the River Thames in autumn. The image of the slimy rat dragging itself through the bushes on the bank is an ugly picture providing a contrast to the earlier bright image of the river. The unreal city symbolizes any city in Europe, America or Asia. Tiresias’s sterility links him symbolically with the Fisher king. His bisexuality highlights the theme of the mobility and intervinacy of sexual identity. Tiresias the blind visionary hreflects the poet’s vision of the futility of human behaviour in a social context. In his voice are combined the voices of other figure such as the Hyacinth Girl, the Thames Daughters philomela , the woman at the pub, madame Sosontris , Ferdinand, Prince of Naples. At the spiritual level we have the voices of Christ, St. Augustine and the Buddha. The literary voices are those of Chaucer, Dante, Spenser and Shakespear.
The Waste Land of T.S. eliot is a remarkable poem which presents a number of points of view through a number of symbols, In the choice and use of the symbols Eliot was largely influenced by the French Symbolist Movement, particularly by the French poet Baudelaire.
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Waste Land