Commentary on 'THE WASTE LAND' by T. S. Eliot

SYMBOLIC STRUCTURE OF 'THE WASTE LAND'

  The poem has been divided into five sections: i. 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 movements are the movements of Tiresias through blind eyes all the characters and sights are seen. Eliot himself said that what Tiresias sees is the summary of the poem. “The lesser characters are not clearly distinguished. They melt into each other, for they are phantom inhabiting an unreality” (M. C. Bradbrook). The structure of the poem is based on Eliot’s use of symbols, both traditional and personal. In the opinion of Bradbrook, “Each of Eliot’s poems moves upon several planes simultaneously, and can be both topical and timeless in its implications”. ‘The Waste Land’ has been written from several philosophic view points. They are spiritual- Christian Existentialism and Upanishadic Doctrine of Soul. Soul or Spirit is the only reality in the universe; nothing else is real. The soul is immortal; it exists in the state of ‘being’ in human life. Man should make his soul noble by charity, compassion and love.

  Eliot observes, and quite rightly too, that the western world has become totally materialistic. People are mad after material gains and bodily pleasure. The spiritual side of life is deplorably ignored. Soul is starving. The materialistic world as reflected in the materialistic mind is a ‘waste land’ for the Soul. The five parts or movements of the poem are related to each another since they are the units of Tiresias’s interior monologue.

i. The Burial of the Dead

     ‘The Burial of the Dead means the burial by materialism of the dead. Materialism does not believe in the existence of the Soul after dead. To the Spiritualists, the man without a Soul is dead. And the dead are buried in the graves. So materialism has buried the materialistic world. As such the world has become a waste land particularly the Western n, materialistic world. The first part of the poem describes that four things are burying the dead: sensualism, unholy love, fraud, and thoughts of earning and spending.

ii. A Game of Chess

     The second part of the poem represents the mentality of the modern materialistic women. Modern woman is wrongly under the dazzling and tantalizing influence of gross materialism and physical pleasure, and is thus losing her Soul to the evil effect of materialism. The theme of this section is that modern woman considers life “a game of chess” in which she is playing with man as co-player. She wants to defeat him in the game, and keep him under the command till another lover arrives.

iii. The Fire Sermon

     The influence of sensualism on modern life forms the main theme of this part of the poem. The Speaker sees “white bodies naked on the low dam ground”. Modern materialistic man’s behaviour is abnormally changed under the evil influence of sensualism. Promiscuity in sex, indiscriminate sex, homo-sexuality, perversion in sexual behaviour have been vividly described in this part. The city has become sexually so hot (corrupted) that it is almost burning in the blaze of sexual lust. The Speaker prays to God to come to his rescue and take him out of the hellish city of gross sensation.

iv. Death by Water

     There is a warning in this movement. The people have been gone mad after wealth are sternly warned. The theme has been discussed in a beautiful metaphor. The materialists want to cross the vast ocean of innumerable desires by means of their body-boats. It is practically impossible. They are unmindful of the undercurrent of death which would drown them in the mid-ocean. The modern man in this materialistic world is unaware of the impending danger of imminent death stalking behind him stealthily.

v. What the Thunder Said

     The Speaker says that since people have forsaken religion and denied God, the world has become a waste land. Sensualism and agnosticism prevail all around. ‘Water’ of selfless love for God and Man is absent from this world. A series of visions come to the speaker. He perceives the demolition of unreal cities. Then he hears voices singing out of empty wells. It is followed by the fall of rain over the church. There comes from his unconscious a vision of a fall of rain over the Ganga and the land around it. A peal of thunder proclaims, “Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata”- meaning thereby, Charity, Compassion, Self-Control. This is the Upanishadic message. The Speaker says that he tried to elevate his Soul through these dictates, but fell unfortunately into the trap of sensuality. He would now try again through those principles.