Dry, Allusive, And Ambiguous: A Close Reading Of “The Wasteland”
T.S. In “The Wasteland,” Eliot paints a picture of desolation and emptiness through his use of modern references juxtaposed with references to a more fruitful period. Eliot describes a fragile era that is rife in wars, sexual and physical, culturally decaying and spiritually broken. His references to mythical vegetation rituals and the Fisher King suggest that 20th-century society needs a Quester for irrigation. The Wasteland does not offer a single solution. The language properties serve to create an ambiguous narrative.
Eliot quickly reveals the first irony in his poem. The speaker begins “The Burial Of the Dead” by commenting on Jesus’ death and Chaucer. He uses harsh sounds to express his spiritual coldness while surrounded by warm people. Chaucer poetically states in “The General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales/ The droughtes of March hath perceded at the roote// And bathed all veines in swichlicour,/ Of whom vertu engrendred?d be the flyr” (Norton Anthology for English Literature sixth edition, vol. 1, p.81). The Wasteland’s Speaker says that April is the worst month to breed/ Lilacs, mix/ Memory and want, stir/ Dull roots, with spring rainfall” (Norton Anthology of Poetry – fourth edition, line 1-4). The speaker’s frustration with the world of contradictions and dichotomies can be seen in his harsh and muted accents. “Memory, desire, and mixing” are all he does. He also shows disillusionment with the world. He said that “Winter kept me warm”, and that delayed alliteration pairs them up to make a surprising couple (5). Reminiscing about her childhood, the speaker can turn back time and even change identity. Nostalgia is an integral component of “The Wasteland”. Here, it tells the story of a young girl who flew “south for winter” as a bird and reads in the mountains. Later Eliot adds historical and literary significance to the poem’s allusions (18). Images depicting the death and destruction of spirituality are at the heart of these allusions.
Eliot uses the second verse to introduce a new theme, one that is made of stones or broken idols. He wonders about his landscape. Son of man/ It is impossible to say, guess, or predict, because you only know/ A heap broken images” (19-23). The roots are now dull and clutch in a perverse sexual image. They come from “stony rubbish”, which will be repeated later as an example of dryness. Eliot calls the “Son” of man Ezekiel. It lives in a pagan time of “broken imagery,” and is analogous to modern man who “know[s] only” this corrupted period. Eliot uses the stone metaphor to describe an object that has “no sound or water”. Only/ There’s shadow beneath this redrock” (24-5). He places the word “only” at a end of each line to draw attention to the subject, and to force his readers to examine its relationship to the poem. Next, the speaker addresses: “(Come In Under the Shadow of This Red Rock),/ And I’ll show you something Different/ Your shadow at Morning striding behind/ Or your shadow at Evening rising to Meet You” (26-9). The Hollow Men,” another meditation upon broken spirituality, contains several stanzas using the word “between”. These stanzas reflect the traveler’s paralyzed state in between life- and death. This serves as a reference point. “The Wasteland,” V., uses the next line to express death’s inevitableness: “I Will Show You Fear in a Few Dust” (30).
The speaker is further separated from any emotional attachment by the irony of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”, which describes his imminent death. Wagner’s sailor song depicts love’s dominance in distance. The “hyacinth-girl,” a love (in the form an aforementioned vegetation ritual), has “arms packed, and?hair wet,” but the speaker admits that he couldn’t/Speak, and his eyes failed, and that he was neither/ living nor dead, and knew nothing. Footnote 8, 38-40 The speaker who is nihilistic, who cannot see or speak, struggles to understand and has difficulty communicating and lives in between life-and-death, the fertility and moisture of the girl fails. Next, Madam Sosostris is the “famous clairvoyante”, continuing the theme about sight and communication (43).
“Sosostris” is a word. Two instances of “os”, in her name, indicate that she speaks Latin for “mouth”. Look! ‘”) (48). One of her cards shows a “one eye merchant” who “carries [something]” on his back that she is “forbidden from seeing” (53-4). She issues the ironic warning “Fear death with water” (55). Ironic isn’t it? Does the death of water seem to drown the exsiccative landscape? Has even the Grail the speaker seeks for, water failed him? Sosostris’s vision ends with “crowds upon crowds, walking around in a band” (56). This ritual, without any meaning or motion, is similar in appearance to “The Hollow Men”, which sees children reciting the prickly tree and then encircling it with a ring.
Eliot’s description of London, “Unreal City/ Under brown fog in the winter dawn”, as a land full of marching corpses shifts to more abstract terms. Eliot used irony again to describe the barrenness. These short, breathless exhalations quickly become the target of the speaker’s sarcastic wrath. Is it going to bloom? Or is the frost causing its bed to become sterile?” (69-73). “Stetson”, through his name and the capitalist driven battle at Mylae ties modern capitalism to the death rituals. In this instance, the corpse is the victim. Jesse Weston says that broken lands needing a Quest fall within two categories. They are those where the infertility occurs prior to the Quest or those where it results from a Hero’s failure. Eliot had resisted the temptation to point fingers at men until now. But in his description for vapid London, it seems that he is blaming the decline of man’s value system for the dying landscape.
Humans have a weak sense of communication. A queen-like woman is seen in “A Game of Chess” sitting in furniture that suits her vast, yet unfulfilled existence. The seductive, rich prose that exalts the woman’s possessions with words like “burnished,” and “glowed” implies that she is worthless. The endings of “ed” or ‘id, like “powdered”, and “troubled”, connote passiveness, as if there are troubles and misfortunes all around. In this context, the “odours”, which are now mimicking the scene from the first verse, are also stirred by the outside (“Stirring pattern on the ceiling with candles”) (93). A conversation is initiated between the woman’s husband and her: “My nerves hurt to-night. Yes, bad. Keep your distance./ Talk to me. You don’t speak. Speak./ What’s your thinking? What are you thinking? What?/ I have no idea what you’re thinking. Think'” (111-4). The poem is subtly shifted to the theme about inarticulacy between sexes by the use of short, flat sentences. Their inarticulate comments include the nihilistic comment: “You don’t know anything?” Are you able to see nothing? Are you able to remember/Nothing? ” (121-2). Eliot can leave behind his aristocratic duelists in order to examine a working class example of desperate communication.
Eliot employs colloquial slang in order to convey a one-sided conversation within a pub. This busy scene appears to be a reminder that humans can communicate. Eliot leads us to this suspicion by using “said” twice in two lines. The bartender interrupts her occasionally, calling out “HURRY UP PLEASE TIME”, which has more serious implications than just the death threat. The woman tells the story of an abortion. However, humanity’s infertility is so strong that it dominates our need to avoid loneliness. (164)
Eliot is reintroduced to the landscape of the fire sermon by this lonely man. Personification facilitates comparisons between environmental death and human life: “The last fingernails of leaf/ Cluck and sink into a wet bank” (173-4). The Fisher King is seen here but in the middle an corrupted ritual. The snake-like appearance of the rat recalls man’s Edenic descent, another example where man brought this “dull” plague upon himself. Man’s robotic nature is further criticized (216-7). Eliot described Tiresias to be the joining of the sexes. This is why we are able to see the sexually horrifying encounter between a woman and a man. He “assaults her immediately;/ Exploring arms encounter no defense” (239-40). This is the man’s connection with a conqueror, colonizer. The poem “The Wasteland” is much less poetic after this encounter. The lines are shortening and don’t attempt to be poetic: “The water sweats/ Oil, tar/ The barges glide/ With the rising tide” (266-9).
The poem’s final words call for images of water. Eliot regrets Phlebas’s passing in “Death by Water”, Madame Osostris’s admonition. As he rose/ He was able to pass the stages of youth and his age/ Entering the swirlpool.” (315). The genitive form “os” means “ossis”, meaning bones. This nostalgic glance at a man once as handsome as you (321) is the result of the clairvoyante’s morbid vision. The final section is “What the Thunder Said”, which features rocks, stones, and water. The narrative depicts a sense of despair and dryness through the layers that are made up of “rock”. Marie once felt at ease in the mountains. But now, there is no solitude in the mountains. The speaker believes that there must be an outsider that is responsible for this. (360, 365-6). Eliot cites the “Falling Towers”, “the city on the mountain” that “Cracks up and reforms and bursts under the violet light” as the source of this problem.
“A damp wind/ Bringing rain” breaks the desolate air. In the poem, the translations of “be controlled,” “give aid,” and “have mercy” are included. This is similar to the final call made by the bartender. The speaker says, “The water was calm, your heart would’ve responded/ Gaily beat obedient/ To control hands” (421-3) Although the sea is now a calm, peaceful place for gay hearts, Eliot’s choice of Eliot’s words “beating obedience/To controlling hands” suggests that there may be a darker motive. The struggle may be over, but with it a drugged complacency. Death still hangs in the air; the Fisher Kings takes the speaker’s role: “I sat by the shore/ Fishing from the arid desert behind me/ Shall my land be at least ordered?” (424-6). This allusion is to a Biblical verse that presents an ambiguous view on death: “Set your house in order for thou shalt not live/ Shall I at least tie up my lands in order?” (424-6). The long spaces and meaning of the last three words, “Shantih Shantih Shantih”, suggest that we will die first before understanding our folly. The poem is returned to its original circle by the invocations of a spiritual mantra, which restores the idea of a dull spirituality as the root of our land’s wasted land.
The Wasteland’s mysterious allusions to other fertile times have made it a leading 20th-century example of alienation poetry. Eliot described it as a “personal, wholly insignificant grouse about life”, written in hospital during the Lost Generation’s spiritual decay. Although he claimed that the function and purpose of the poet’s brain is to communicate ideas and withhold personal interaction it is hard to read “The Wasteland” while not questioning the authorial intent. Is it possible that the Fisher King, who is written in the third person, may be the poet himself? Although he might argue against such a self-enlarging statement, Eliot would have likely written “The Wasteland” in the hope that it would end the drought in his land. In this way, Eliot can be considered a Fisher King. However, the new ritual for vegetable harvesting is not writing.
Works cited:
Abrams et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature 6th Edition, vol. 1. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. published New York in 1993.
Ferguson et al. The Norton Anthology of Poetry: Fourth Edition. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. published the book in New York in 1996.
