LAID / Lit & Civ

Master 1 S2

Module : Modern British Literature (LAID) / Contemporary American Literature (Lit & Civ)

📚 The Waste Land - by T.S Eliot.

Poem Summary :

Dedicated to the poet Ezra Pound, "the better craftsman."

📖 Section I: The Burial of the Dead

April is the most mean-spirited of all the months, with all those lilacs blooming out of the lifeless soil as
reminder of memory and love, while spring rain stirs up the painful past. Winter seemed warmer
because the snow covered up the ground (and those memories), and life was like dried-up bulbs under
the earth: sheltered, suppressed. Summer came all of a sudden, crossing Lake Starnbergersee in the
rain. We sat in the sunny park, drinking coffee and talking. "I am not Russian at all; I come from
Lithuania, a real German." When we were children, I stayed with my cousin the archduke, and he took
me sledding, and I was scared. He said to me, "Marie, hold on tight," and down the hill we went. You
feel a sense of freedom up there in the mountains. I read all night long, and I travel south when winter
comes.

Can any roots or branches grow out of this stony, barren soil? As a human being, you cannot tell me, or
even guess, because all you know are the broken symbols of modern life: a waste land where the sun is
harsh and dead trees offer no shade, crickets no longer sing, and water does not run. But there is shade
under this red rock (come stand in the shade under this red rock), and I will show you something other
than your shadow cast behind you in the morning, or in front of you in the evening; I will show you how
to fear the shadow of death. Fresh blows the wind to the homeland; my Irish child, where are you
waiting? "You first expressed your love with a bouquet of hyacinths a year ago; people called me the
hyacinth girl." And yet when we returned late from the garden, your arms full of flowers and your hair
wet, I was speechless, I could hardly look at you, I felt empty, neither alive nor dead. I looked into your
good heart, and saw only silence. Desolate and empty is the sea.
Madame Sosostris, the famous fortune-teller, has a bad cold like any ordinary person, but is somehow
still known as the wisest woman in Europe with her evil deck of tarot cards. "Here is your card," she said,
"The drowned Phoenician Sailor, with his dead eyes like pearls, look!" She carried on, "Here is
Belladonna, the beautiful and poisonous lady, the Madonna of the Rocks, that complex lady. Here is the
man with three staffs, and here is the Wheel of Fortune, and here is the merchant looking sideways at
us, and this blank card represents the burdens the merchant carries, which I am not allowed to see. I
cannot find The Hanged Man card. You should be afraid of death by water. I see crowds of people in
your future, walking aimlessly in circles. Thank you, the reading is over. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, let
her know I'll come by with her horoscope myself; you can never be too careful these days."

In this unreal city, covered by the brown fog of winter mornings, a crowd of people streamed across the
London Bridge. There were so many people; I did not realize just how many people were isolated,
alienated, beyond reach. They sighed every now and then, and every man walked with his eyes cast
down at his feet. They walked up the hill and down King William Street, to where the church bells at
Saint Mary Woolnoth kept time, striking nine o'clock with a heavy sound. That's where I spotted
someone I knew, and stopped him, calling out, "Stetson! You and I fought together at the battle of
Mylae! That dead body you planted last year in your garden, is it growing yet? Will it bloom this year? Or
did the sudden frost get to it? Keep out the dog, man's best friend, or he'll dig it right back up! You!—
yes, you, hypocritical reader—my likeness, my twin—my brother!"

📖 Section II: A Game of Chess

She sat in a chair that was like a shining throne, its glow reflected on the marble floor. A mirror,
decorated with wrought-iron vines and a golden Cupid statue (and another statue who covered his eyes
with one of his wings) reflected and doubled the flames of the seven-branched candelabra. The
candlelight shone onto the table and caught the glitter of her jewels, which poured richly out of their
satin cases. Her odd, fake perfumes were skulking around in uncorked vials made of ivory and of colorful
glass. The perfumes were grease, powder, or liquid—and all of them were troubling and confusing. They
overwhelmed the senses with their smells, which were stirred up by the fresh air that came in through
the window, and fed the flames, whose smoke rose toward the ceiling and made the pattern look like it
was moving. A huge piece of driftwood lined with copper and framed by colored stone seemed to glow
green and orange, shedding sad light on a dolphin statue. Above the antique fireplace hung a painting of
a forest scene depicting the transformation of Philomel, who was raped by a brutal king; but as a
nightingale, she filled the desert with her unbreakable voice. Yet still she cried out, and was chased by
the world, "Jug jug," a nightingale's song, which fell on deaf and ruined ears. And other old relics and
their worn out stories hung on the walls; statues stared, leaned, stifling the close quarters of the room.
Footsteps shuffled on the stairs. In the firelight, as she brushed her hair, the strands came to red fiery
points, just like her words, which then led to savage silence.
"My anxiety is bad tonight. Yes, it is bad. Stay with me. Talk to me. Why don't you ever talk? Say
something. What are you thinking about? Are you thinking? What? I never know what's going on in your
head. Think."

I think we are in a broken dismal world, where men feel dead and lose their form and purpose.

"What's that sound?" It's just the wind blowing in under the door. "What's that other sound? What is
the wind doing?" Nothing, again, the wind is doing nothing. "Do you know anything? Do you see
anything? Do you remember anything?"

I remember the drowned man's eyes like pearls, in the tarot card. "Are you alive or not? Is there
anything going on in your head?"

But oooooh, that ragtime song—it's so sophisticated, so smart! "What should I do now? What should I
do? I'm going to rush outside just like this and walk the street with my hair down, like so. What should
we do tomorrow? What on earth should we do?" The same thing we always do: heat the water for tea
at ten, and if it rains, a car will come pick us up at four. And we will play chess, rub our eyes that cannot
look away, and wait for someone to knock on the door and disturb this tired routine.

When Lil's husband got discharged from the army, I said—I spoke bluntly, saying to her myself—"HURRY
UP PLEASE IT'S TIME FOR THE PUB TO CLOSE."—"Now that Albert has come home from the war, dress
yourself up. He'll want to know what you did with the money he gave you to fix your teeth. He did so
give you money for your teeth, I know because I was there. Have them removed, Lil, and get a nice set
of dentures; I remember, Albert said he couldn't bear to look at you like that, and neither can I," I said.
"And think of your poor husband, he's been in the army four years and now he just wants to have a
good time, and if you don't give it to him, others will be happy to," I said. "Oh, is that so?" she said.
"Something like that," I said. "Well, if he does stray, I'll know who's to blame," she said, and gave me a
pointed look. —"HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME FOR THE PUB TO CLOSE."—"If you don't like the way things
are, then move on," I said. "Others will be happy to scoop him up if you don't want him. But if Albert
leaves you, don't say I didn't warn you why. You should be embarrassed," I said, "to look so old and
haggard." (She's only thirty-one, for goodness' sake.) "I can't help it," she said, with a sad expression,
"it's because of the pills I took for the abortion." (She has five kids already, and nearly died giving birth
to baby George.) "The pharmacist said it would be all right, but I haven't been the same since." "You are
a true fool," I said. "Well, if Albert won't stop sleeping with you, that's that," I said. "What did you get
married for if you don't want children?"—"HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME FOR THE PUB TO CLOSE."—Well,
that Sunday Albert came home, they had a hot ham, and they asked me over for dinner, to enjoy that
rare hot meal—"HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME FOR THE PUB TO CLOSE. HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME FOR
THE PUB TO CLOSE."—"Good night Bill. Good night Lou. Good night May. Good night. Ta ta. Good night.
Good night. Good night, ladies, good night, lovely ladies, good night, good night."

📖 Section III: The Fire Sermon

The trees over the river are dormant: the last of their leaves cling and sink into the wet bank. The wind
crosses the barren land without anyone around to hear it. The nymphs are all gone. Sweet river Thames,
flow softly, until I my poem is over. There are no empty bottles, sandwich papers, silk handkerchiefs,
cardboard boxes, cigarette butts and other trash floating along the river, all that evidence of people
hanging out there on summer nights. The nymphs are all gone. And they have been replaced by so-
called elites, who pollute the river anyway; they're gone now too, though, and they left no way to
contact them. By the waters of Lake Leman I sat down and cried... Sweet Thames, flow softly until my
poem is over. Sweet Thames, flow softly, because I only have a few short, quiet things to say. But behind
me, in a strong cold wind, I hear the deathly rattle of bones, and a cold laugh that spreads from ear to
ear.

A rat gently crawled through the grasses, dragging its slimy belly on the riverbank, as I was fishing in the
polluted canal on a winter evening behind the slums, thinking about the shipwreck of my brother, the
king, and about the death of my father, the king before that. I was thinking about their pale corpses
lying naked on the low damp ground and their bones left in a little low dry attic, disturbed only by rats,
year after year. But behind me from time to time I hear the sound of horns and motors of cars, which
will bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. Oh, the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter, and on her
daughter. They wash their feet in soda water. And, oh, those children's voices, singing in the dome!

Tweet tweet tweet, chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp, chirp, she was raped,by Tereus, whose name
sounds like birdsong.

In this unreal city, covered by the brown fog of a winter afternoon, Mr. Eugenides, the unshaven
merchant from Smyrna, with a pocket full of currants paid for the cost, insurance, and freight to London:
documents at the ready. He asked me in colloquial French to lunch at the Cannon Street Hotel, and then
invited me to spend the weekend together at the Metropole Hotel.
At dusk, when the body finally gets up from the desk, when the modern human waits, like a taxi waits,
humming like an engine, I, Tiresias, though blind, caught between two genders, an elderly man with
wrinkled female breasts, can see at dusk, the evening hour that leads toward home, and brings the
sailor home from sea, the typist, who comes home in the afternoon at teatime, washes her breakfast
dishes, lights her stove, and lays out canned food. Hanging on a laundry line out the window, her drying
undergarments receive the last of the sun's rays. On the sofa (which serves as her bed at night) are piled
stockings, slippers, slips, and corsets. I Tiresias, the old man with wrinkled breasts, saw the scene, and
predicted the rest—I too was waiting for the expected guest. He, the young man with acne, arrives. He is
a small-time clerk, with a bold stare, one of the low-born who wears confidence like a Bradford
millionaire wears a silk hat. The time is advantageous, he guesses: the meal is over, and she has nothing
else to do. He attempts to get her in the mood, which she does not resist, though she does not desire it.
Flushed and determined, he makes his move; his wandering hands receive no resistance; he is so vain he
does not care that she does not respond to his advances with enthusiasm, and even welcomes her
indifference. (And I Tiresias have already suffered all the ills that took place on this same sofabed; I who
have sat by the city of Thebes below the walls and walked among the worst of the dead.) The young
man gives her one last condescending kiss, and fumbles his way out, onto the darkened stairs...

She turns and looks for a moment in the mirror, hardly aware of her departed lover; her brain allows
one half-formed thought to pass: "Well, now that's done, and I'm glad it's over." A lovely woman who
has lowered herself to do a foolish thing, and now can only pace around her room alone, she smooths
her hair with a robotic hand, and puts a record on the gramophone.

"This music crept by me upon the waters" and along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. Oh City, city, I
can sometimes hear, when I am near a pub on Lower Thames Street, the pleasant sounds of a
mandoline, and the busyness and chatter from inside, where fishermen hang out at noon. Down where
the walls of the church St. Magnus Martyr preserve the unexplainable splendor of ancient Roman white
and gold columns.

The river exudes oil and tar, the barges drift down the water with the changing tide, their red sails open
wide, downwind, swinging on the heavy masts. The barges wash away down the river like drifting logs,
down past Greenwich, reaching past the Isle of Dogs. Weialala leia... Wallala leialala...

Queen Elizabeth I and her lover Robert Leicester: the beating oars of their boat, whose stern was a
gilded shell of red and gold. The same swift waters rippled the shore in their time and ours, a southwest
wind carrying the peal of bells from the white towers downstream. Weialala leia... Wallala leialala...
"Trolleys and dusty trees. I was born in Highbury. I was ruined in Richmond and Kew. In Richmond, I lost
my virginity, laid out on the floor of a narrow canoe."

"My feet pointed pointed toward Moorgate, and I was on my back, my heart below my feet. After we
had sex, he wept. He promised a 'new start.' I said nothing. What do I have to resent?"

"At Margate Sands. I can't make connections between anything. The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people are humble people who expect nothing." La la

To the ancient city of Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning, O Lord do away with me, O Lord do away

burning

📖 Section IV: Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, who's been dead these last two weeks, has forgotten the cry of the seagulls,
and the waves of the sea, and the profit and loss of his shipping business. A current under the sea picks
at his bones bit by bit. As he rose and fell with the waves he saw his life pass before his eyes and entered
the stormy whirlpool. No matter who you are, Gentile or Jew, oh, you who navigate your own life and
look to the future, remember Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

📖 Section IV: What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight shone red on sweaty faces, after the gardens went cold and lifeless, after the agony
in rocky places, after the shouting and the crying, in the prison and the palace alike, after the echoes of
spring thunder over distant mountains, he who was alive is now dead. We who were alive are now
dying, slowly.

There is no water here, only rock; only rock, no water, and the sandy road; the road winding up through
the mountains, which are mountains made of rocks with no water. If there were water we would stop
and drink. Among the rocks one cannot stop or think. Our sweat has gone dry and our feet are in the
sand. If there were only water among the rocks. This is a dead mountain, like a mouth with decaying
teeth that can no longer spit. This is a place where people cannot stand, lie down, nor sit. There isn't
even silence in the mountains, only dry barren thunder that does not bring rain. You're not even alone in
the mountains; instead red pouting faces sneer and snarl from the doorways of their dry mud houses. If
there was water and no rock, if there was rock and also water, and water, a spring, a pool among the
rocks, if there were only the sound of water, not the cicadas' hum and dry grass blowing, but the sound
of water running over a rock, where the hermit-bird sings in the pine trees, drip drop drip drop drop
drop drop... but again there isn't any water.

Who is the third person always walking next to you? When I count, there is just you and me, side by
side, but when I look ahead up the white road, there is always someone walking next to you. Gliding,
wrapped in a brown cloak and hood. I do not know whether they are a man or a woman—but who is
that, next to you?

What is that high-pitched sound in the air, motherly wails? Who are those hooded masses swarming
over endless plains, stumbling over the cracked ground, surrounded only by the endless horizon? What
is the city on the other side of the mountains? There are cracks and repairs and explosions in the dusk.
Towers are falling. Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria, Vienna, London. All of them are unreal.

A woman pulled her long black hair tight, and played ominous music like a fiddle on those strings. Bats
with the faces of babies whistled at dusk, and beat their wings, and crawled heads-downward down a
burnt wall. And upside down in the air hung towers, ringing familiar bells that kept the time. And voices
sang out of empty reservoirs and dry wells.

In this decrepit hole, in the middle of the mountains, in the weak moonlight, the wind whistles through
the grass, past fallen graves, around the chapel. There is the chapel, home only to the wind. It has no
windows, and the door swings open and shut. Old bones can't hurt anyone. Only a rooster stood on the
roof, saying cock-a-doodle-doo. There's a flash of lightning. Then, a damp gust, bringing rain.
The Ganges River was dry, and limp leaves waited for rain, while storm clouds gathered distantly over
the snowy Himalayas. The jungle waited expectantly in silence. Then spoke the thunder: BOOM, or DA,
like Datta, to give: what have we done? My friend, my heartbeat pounded with the awful bravery
required to surrender to a moment of lust, which even our era of cautiousness cannot take back. These
lustful acts, and these only, mark our existence, though they won't be found in our obituaries, or in
memories cobwebbed with generosity, or in our wills unsealed by our lawyers. In our empty rooms:
BOOM, or DA, like Dayadhvam, sympathize: I have heard the key turning in the lock, just once. We think
of the key, each of us in prisons of our own making. As we think of the key, each of our prisons of the
self are affirmed. Only at nightfall, vague rumors give momentary life to the broken man locked within
himself. BOOM, or DA, like Damyata, control: the boat responded happily under expert hands. The
water was quiet; your heart would also have responded happily, obediently, when invited by controlling
hands.

I sat upon the shore fishing, with the barren plain behind me. Should I at least restore order to my
kindgom? London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down. He hid himself in the fire which
refines him. When shall I be like the swallow?—Oh, swallow, swallow. The Prince of Aquitaine in the
ruined tower. These fragments, I have used as support against the ruins of my life. Why then I will
accommodate you. Hieronymo's crazy again. Give. Sympathize. Control. Peace, peace, peace.