Essay on Identifying with the Waste Land
986 Words
4 Pages
T.S Eliot’s The Waste Land frustrates the reader with a complexity so dense that he or she feels lost. This frustration arises out of the poem’s fragmented structure of the characters, place, and time which gives the reader an insight into the civilization following World War I and the authors’ chaotic state of mind. He shows how modern life appears to be fragmented and disordered through the shifting images, points of view and alternating periods of time. T.S Eliot uses allusions to myths, history, and literature to lead us out of the confining present moment and ego to transcend into a self that is free and in harmony with others and nature.
T.S Eliot suggests myths throughout The Waste Land to let the reader indirectly recognize the …show more content…
T.S Eliot suggests myths throughout The Waste Land to let the reader indirectly recognize the …show more content…
T.S Eliot portrays modern aimlessness through historical context. The poem suggests the state of depression, waste and meaningless after the disastrous incident. The post World War I era had spiritually scarred soldiers and the population at large while battlefields were filled with trenches of cadavers. The Waste land is a reflection of the disillusion in Europe after the war:
“Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many
I had not thought death had undone so many”
The Unreal City is a representation of how lost people felt with themselves after World War I. The city full of fog implies despair and isolation. The author mentions how the crowds “flowed” over London Bridge as if they were lost souls without purpose and meaning. In addition, the city of London is another desolated land in Europe, were the population is spiritually and mentally dead and where the war “had done so many”. The Unreal City suggests that death is not death somehow, but that death—a vegetation ritual—provides continuity and is required for new life. Moreover, Eliot portrays a feeling of darkness in The Burial of the Dead by using very detailed illusions. His descriptions trap us into his dreadful imagery making us to find a way out and leave our ego behind in order to reach harmony within the self. T.S Eliot suggests that the people of Unreal City will continue in this confinement until they let go of the past and work together
“Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many
I had not thought death had undone so many”
The Unreal City is a representation of how lost people felt with themselves after World War I. The city full of fog implies despair and isolation. The author mentions how the crowds “flowed” over London Bridge as if they were lost souls without purpose and meaning. In addition, the city of London is another desolated land in Europe, were the population is spiritually and mentally dead and where the war “had done so many”. The Unreal City suggests that death is not death somehow, but that death—a vegetation ritual—provides continuity and is required for new life. Moreover, Eliot portrays a feeling of darkness in The Burial of the Dead by using very detailed illusions. His descriptions trap us into his dreadful imagery making us to find a way out and leave our ego behind in order to reach harmony within the self. T.S Eliot suggests that the people of Unreal City will continue in this confinement until they let go of the past and work together