THE WASTE LAND – T. S. ELIOT
v
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is a landmark in the
history of English poetry. Though the poem has only about four hundred and
forty lines, it is regarded as the epic of our age. The poem has five parts 1)
the Burial of the Dead 2) A Game of Chess 3) The Fire Sermon 4) Death by Water
5) What the Thunder Said.
v
The poem has a very austere and dull atmosphere.
There are several reason for this bleakness. Eliot wrote this poem at a time
when his private life was passing through a predicament. The mental derangement
and finally the death of his wife in a mental hospital, the breakdown of his
own health and his slow, painful recovery in Lausenne, Switzerland, the nerve-
shattering impact of World War I – all these factors combined together
contributed to the gloomy feeling expressed in The Waste Land.
v
The poem was first published in serial form in
The Criteron in October and November, 1922.
v
Before publishing the poem, Eliot sent the rough
draft to Ezra Pound who suggested radical modifications. Pound asked Eliot to
remove the quotation from Conrad which originally formed the Epigraph to the
poem.
v
This makes the poem incoherent.
v
When the poem was published, it was severely
attacked. Many critics condemned its incoherence and called it a pastiche.
v
The title The Waste Land is derived from the
work of Miss Weston’s book From Ritual to Romance.
v
The epigraph of the poem come from the Satyrican
a satire of the poet Petronius.
v
The poem narrates the story of the Sibyl of
Cumae. The Sibyl of Cumae, the beloved of Apollo, was granted immortality by
him, but without eternal youth. The result was that she grew old and withered
but could not die. She longed for death. Like the Sibyl, the moderns also wish
to die. So Eliot uses the Sibyl’s statement expressing her death-wish as the
epigraph of his poem.
THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
v
The first part of the poem is entitled ‘The
Burial of the Dead’. The title refers to i) the burial of the dead,
fertility-god and ii) the burial service for the dead performed by the Christian
church. In both cases, death is believed to be followed by rebirth. But the
moderns have no faith in rebirth.
v
April, a month characterized by regeneration of
plants and trees, is most unwelcome to the moderns, for it reminds them of
their unpreparedness for spiritual regeneration.
v
The protagonist of this part of the poem is
Tiresias and German princess called Marie.
v
Marie’s life represents the roothlessness of the
people of our time. She keeps touring different parts of the world in the company
of her uncle, an arch-duke, with whom she seems to have sex relations. Her
activities have no unifying purpose- reading much in the night and going south
in the winter are two disconnected activities of hers mentioned in the poem.
Spirituality, symbolized by rain, is shunned by her – she is surprised by the
shower of rain and runs away from it.
v
Tiresias looks around himself and sees only
waste and barrenness. The stones, dead trees, dry stones without any sound of
water, the hot sun- all these things symbolize the spiritual desolation of our
time. Nothing spiritual can grow in this waste land. People have only broken
images, that is wrecked hopes and ideals, to comfort them. Even ‘a handful of
dust’ frightens them. The shadow which symbolizes death is another thing
constantly terrifying them in youth; the shadow (thought of death) is behind
them. In old age, the shadow is ahead of them – they feel that death is before
them, ready to meet them. Tiresias invites the moderns to take shelter under
‘the red rock’. The red rock symbolizes Christianity. Eliot thus maintains that
only Christianity can solve our problems.
v
The next section of the poem exposes the
degeneration of our times. Madam Sosostris is famous clairvoyante, equipped
with a pack of cards. This is reminiscent of the Terrot pack used in ancient
times in Egypt to foretell the rise and fall of the river Nile. The Nile was
the source of fertility. But Madame Sosostris seems to be involved in shady
affairs.
v
The figures on her cards reappear in some of the
later sections of the poem: The Drowned Phoenician sailor, symbolizes the
fertility God whose image was thrown into the sea every year to symbolize the
end of summer. Drowning is a process of transformation and so his eyes have
been transformed into pearls.
v
Belladohna Lady of the Rocks: she is an expert
in handling sex intrigues. She stands for the sexy society women of the modern
waste land. She reappears in the section entitled A Game of Chess.
v
The man with three staves is the King Fisher
himself. He symbolizes degenerate humanity, requiring threefold remedy – to
give, sympathize and to control.
v
The wheel stands for the efforts of degenerate
humanity to guide and control itself without caring for divine guidance. It may
also stand for the flux of life and the cycle of seasons.
v
The one-eyed merchant is the Smyrna merchant who
in the past brought both religion and sexuality to Europe. Now he has only one
eye, that is , he has only sexuality and has lost religious function. The card which
is blank represents the hollowness of religion in our time.
v
The Hanged man is either Christ crucified or the
dead fertility god. He is ‘hooded’ and the fortune teller cannot recognize him,
that is, Christ’s values are neglected in our time.
v
“The crowds of people, walking in a ring” are
the London crowds going through their daily round of existence – dull, boring,
monotonousng through their daily round of existence – dull, boring, monotonous.
v
Tiresias, the protagonist surveys the unreal
city, London, and the crowd moving over the London Bridge. These people on
their routine work without worrying about any spirituality. They start their
work at nine, which was also the hour of Christ’s crucifixion. But the hour
means nothing to people. The stroke of nine does not remind them of Christ’s
agony. These people are spiritually dead. The “brown for” of London reminds us
of a similarly enveloped city in Bandelaire. Thus Eliot implies that all
European cities, including London, are unreal. The crowds flowing over the
bridge remind us of similar crowds in Dante’s Inferno.
v
Tiresias now stops one Stetson, an acquaintance
of his whom he had first met at Mylea, an important naval battle. As
Matthiessan points out, in the Punic Wars between Greece and Carthage. Cleanth
Brooks says that Eliot, by having Tiresias address a man from the Punic wars
and not from the world war; implies ‘all wars are one war; all experience one
experience”. The ‘corpse’ and ‘the dog’ of this section have been interpreted
in various ways. Cleanth Brooks takes the dog to mean ‘humanitarianism,
rationalism and scientific mentality’ which in their concern for man, extirpate
the supernatural – dig up the corpse of the buried fertility god and thus
prevents the rebirth of life.
v
The French quotation at the end of the section,
meaning “You hypocritical reader, my fellow-man, my brother” completes the
universalisation of Stetson. Stetson represents Everyman, including the reader
and Eliot himself.
A GAME OF CHESS
v In
this section, Eliot pictures the sexual perversion prevalent among both the
upper and lower classes. The first part of this section shows the adulterous
relationship between a rich neurotic lady and her adulterous lover. The mention
of Philomel who after being raped, was changed into a nightingale throws into
bold relief the degeneracy of our time. Philomel, in ancient times was
transformed through suffering. But no such transformation is possible for the
modern lady. The modern lady is the victim of dread and neurosis. The only
remedy that her lover can think of for her neurotic dread is taking bath in hot
water and going out in a closed car. The lives of these rich adulterous are
shallow and artificial.
v The
later half of the section is about the going-on of the demobilized soldier Albert
and his wife Lil. He is expected to be back home soon. Having been away from
his wife for four years, he is thirsting for sexual satisfaction. Unfortunately
his wife, having taken pills to abort herself, has become emaciated and lost
all her good looks. She has lost her teeth. Lil’s friend tells her that if she
fails to give sexual pleasure to her husband he will go on to other women.
Lil’s friend is talking about these matters in a pub. Since it is closing time,
the keeper asks these women to hurry up. The injunction also symbolizes a
warning to these women to reform themselves in time.
THE FIRE SERMON
v
The title of this section is taken from the
famous sermon of Lord Buddha in which the word is shown burning with lust and
passion. It also reminds one of the Confessions of St. Augustine who described
the world as ‘a cauldron of unholy leaves’.
v
The section opens with Tiresias surveying the
Thames scene in the autumn. The leaves have fallen and the wind moves noiselessly.
The Thames is deserted. In summer, the place was thronged by rich men and
flirtatious women. All of them have now left, leaving behind empty bottles,
cigarette cases, handkerchiefs and other signs of their revelry. The water is a
source of purification and regeneration but the degenerate moderns do not
realize this. They defile the river. As a result the river ‘sweats oil and
tar’. The pollution of the river symbolizes spiritual degeneration. The river
scene puts us in mind of a similar scene in Spencer’s Prothalamion.
v
The protagonist mourns the pollution of the
river water. As he sits on its banks fishing in the dull canal near the gas
house, a cold wind blows. It brings to him the sound of the senseless laughter
of London crowds who move about rattling like dried bones. Memories crowd in
upon him and he is reminded of Bonnivard in the Prison of Chillon in Byron’s
famous poem. Lamenting his loss of freedom on the banks of Lake Leman; or the
captive jews in the bible weeping by the river Babylon.
v
The protagonist is also reminded of the Fisher
King, fishing for the regeneration of his brother, and of Ferdinand mourning
the death of his father, the king of Naples. Water and fishing were symbols of
transformation in the past but now they have lost their significance. The
protagonist sees only dry bones about him rattled by rats. Further the
protagonist sees Mrs. Porter and her daughter washing their feet with soda
water and thus making themselves attractive enough o the customers visiting
their brother. Reference to ‘sound of horns and hunting’ in Marvel’s To His Coy
Mistress puts us in mind of Actaeon being brought face to face with Diana, the
goddess of chastity. However in this passage the horns are the horns of the
cars bringing such coarse customers as Sweeney to the brothel-keeper Mrs.
Porter. The lust and sexual perversion of the modern man is further emphasized
by the French song ‘O these children voices singing in the choir’ from
Verlain’s Parsifal. In this poem Sir Parsifal reaches the Chapel perilous in
search of the Holy Grail. But there is no purity in his heart and his sex
instincts are aroused by the children’s voices singing. The modern man’s
perverted sex with children is hinted at here.
v
Similarly the song of the nightingale evokes, not
remorseful feelings, but only coarse sexual feelings in the minds of the
moderns.
v
The homosexuality rife in our time is hinted at
in the next passage. Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant, formerly brought both
merchandise and fertility cults to Europe. But now he spreads only
homosexuality. He invites the protagonist Tiresias to hotels known to be
hotbeds of homosexuality.
v
The relationship not only between men but
between men and women is also perverted. A typist, tired after the day’s work,
is approached by a coarse man. He has sex with her,without minding her
indifference and lack of active participation.
v
The women does not feel guilty at all. After the
man leaves, the women merely puts a record on the gramophone and listens to the
music.
v
Tiresias next visits the quarters inhabited by
the poor. The protagonist hears the chatter of fishermen and sailors in the
rivers. These poor men are also not free from sexual perversion and sin as
brought out by the songs of the three Thames’ daughters, i.e. three poor girls
living on the banks of the river.
v
First the three daughters of Thames sing
together. They sing of dirty modern commerce. Pleasure boats drift on the
river, splashing water and spar on the logs of wood floating down from
Greenwich. This is described as a voyage undertaken in the past by Queen
Elizabeth with her favourite Leicester in her richly decorated pleasure boat.
Her pleasure boat is far superior to the drab merchant ships of our time. But
Elizabeth’s sex relationship with Leicester was as sterile as that of the
daughters of Thames. Queen Elizabeth dominated her lover. This is unlike the
humiliation suffered by the daughters of the Thames at the hands of their
heartless men.
v
The Three daughters of the Thames sing
separately about their sins. The first girl hates the dirty atmosphere of
Highbury. She confesses that she was violated in Richmond and Kew. She lost her
virginity in a boat.
DEATH BY WATER
v
Water is the traditional symbol of purification
and regeneration, but in the modern land of desolation it has lost its
functions and has become a source of destruction. This is so because man has
become beastly, given to the pursuit of wealth, and sensuous pleasures.
Phelbas, the Phoenician sailor, was young and tall and handsome but he was
drowned because he was obsessed with profit and loss.
v
He was caught in a whirlpool and passed the
various stages of his age youth. The reference is to the ritual immersion of
the effigy of the vegetation god, Osiris, who was supposed to pass the various
stages of life in the reverse order. He is old when he is immersed in water but
becomes young and then a boy and is finally reborn. But there is no re-birth
for the Phoenician sailor, because of his sordid commercialism.
v
The moderns are guided by mercenary forces only
and not by moral and spiritual principles. At present, the moderns turn the
wheel of life themselves, i.e. a life uncontrolled by spiritual considerations.
Complete secularization is the root cause of the contemporary decay and
degeneration.
v
The second daughter had quite a moving
experience. Her lover wept after the event and promised to reform. The girl did
not show any concern. For, she knew that the man’s remorse was only a passing
feeling.
v
The third girl was undone on ‘Margate sands’, a
sea-side pleasure spot in London. She feels the
insignificance and nothingness of her life. Her people are helpless
humble people, like dumb-driven cattle.
WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
v The Upanishads tell us of God
speaking to His devotees in thunder and pointing out to them the way of
salvation in the final section of The Waste Land. Eliot points out the way of
salvation to the moderns and so the section is fittingly entitled as ‘What the
Thunder Said’. The way of salvation suggested by Eliot is based on the hoary
wisdom of India. In the first passage of this section, the poet describes
Christ’s arrest and His suffering at the hands of His enemies. Christ was
surrounded by dirty, sweating crowds, with burning torches in their hands.
There was silence and terror everywhere after his arrest. The use of the word
‘garden’ suggests the death of the fertility of god in vegetation ceremonies.
Christ spent a painful period in the palace of the Roman governor Pilate, where
he was interrogated and put in prison (Stony Paces). Then it was rumoured that
Christ was going to be released. This led to angry demonstration in front of
the prison. At last Christ was crucified. Though Christ physically died. Yet he
lived on in the minds of his disciples and followers. The twentieth century has
totally forgotten Christ. In this sense, Christ is now dead, we have forgotten
Christ. We are slowly dying spiritually.
v In the passage beginning, ‘Here is
no water, but only rock’, the reference is to the journey of Sir Percival or
Parsifal, searching for the Holy Grail. Parsifal and his followers reach the
mountain on the top of which is the Chapel Perilous in which is kept the lost
Grail. There have been no rains for a long time and so there is universal ruin.
As the searcher approaches the Chapel, he has hallucinations. Red ghostly
figures seem to look out at the quester from mud cracked houses and mock at
him. There is no water not even the sound of water. There is only the endless
jarring noise made by insects.
v The next passage narrates a
hallucination experienced by the disciples of Christ during their journey to
Emmaus, an evil land described in the Bible. One of the disciples sees a hooded
figure, wrapped in a brown mantle, walking on the other side of his companion.
The disciple does not know who the person is.
v The journey to the Chapel Perilous
and the journey to Emmaus had a definite purpose. But the modern humanity
wanders about without any definite purpose. This is described in the passage
beginning ‘what is that sound’. The hooded hordes symbolize the modern
humanity. The murmur of maternal lamentation may be the lamentation of Europe
over its plight. Towers are falling, that is, values are collapsing. Eastern
Europe is represented as a mad woman, fiddling music on her own hair. The bats
in this passage symbolize decay and the ‘towers upside down’ symbolize the
perversion of the functions of the church. Church bells are still tolled and
people still attend the church. But people have no genuine faith in
Christianity, people are spiritually dead. This is symbolized by ‘empty
cisterns and exhausted wells’.
v Unlike the fruitless questers of our
time, the Knight (Parsifal) ultimately reaches the goal. He reaches the Chapel
Perilous on top of the mountain, only to find it in ruins. Still there is some
hope. A cock crows, standing on a roof. This symbolizes the end of the hopeless
condition and the birth of a hopeful state. Also, there is a damp wind, indicating
the arrival of rain and fertility. The maimed King Fisher is likely to return
to health.
v Once India did not have rains for a
long period. There was universal ruin in India as there is around the Chapel
Perilous now. God spoke to the distressed people in thunder, suggesting a three
fold way of attaining salvation – Datta, Dayadhvam and Damyata.
v ‘Datta’ means to give. We must give
ourselves over to some noble cause, without being swayed by prudential
considerations even though such a sacrifice will not be recorded in obituaries
or richly rewarded in the wills of rich men.
v ‘Dayadhvam’ means ‘to sympathize’.
Modern man is self-centred like Coriolanus. He should come out of the prison of
his self and achieve oneness with others.
v ‘Damyata’ means ‘self-control’. If
we are spiritually disciplined our life will be easy and smooth, like the easy
movement of a boat under expert guidance.
v In the last passage, the poet
strikes a personal note and tells the spiritually dead humanity how he hopes to
achieve spiritual salvation. The falling of the ‘London Bridge’ symbolizes
spiritual and social disintegration of the waste land. The poet turns his back
on the dead land and sits fishing on the shore of the river, i.e. he makes
efforts for his spiritual re-generation. He remembers some lines from Dante’s
Purgatoria and some from another Latin poem, Pervigilium Veneris, which teach
him that suffering results in self-purification and beauty is born when the
heart is purified. He has also learnt that absolute detachment is necessary for
spiritual salvation. These are the principles he has collected and he hopes to
save himself by following them in life. Just as the mad Hiernimo in Kyd’s
Spanish Tragedy is ready to fit the actors with a suitable play, so Eliot has also
fitted or provided humanity with the necessary advice and guidance. In the end,
he reminds humanity of the teachings of the Upanishads. It is in this way alone
that absolute peace – ‘the peace which passeth understanding’ – can be
achieved. Thus the poem ends with a message of hope. The poet suggests a way to
attain salvation.
