The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

UGC NET JRF – Section-wise Summary & Key Concepts

📘 Overview

• Published: 1922
• Movement: Modernism
• Form: Fragmented free verse, multiple speakers, allusions
• Themes: Spiritual barrenness, disillusionment post-WWI, search for redemption
• Influences: Jessie Weston's From Ritual to Romance, James Frazer's The Golden Bough

Eliot dedicated this poem to Ezra Pound

I. The Burial of the Dead

• “April is the cruellest month” – Subverts traditional view of spring
• Multiple voices and memories of Europe, especially post-war decay
• Madame Sosostris performs a tarot reading – hints at lost spiritual guidance
• The “Unreal City” – a haunting version of London
• Spiritual dryness and existential fear dominate

Characters:

• Marie – nostalgic aristocratic voice
• Madame Sosostris – symbolic fortune teller
• Stetson – war-time acquaintance

Terms & Allusions:

• “Unreal City” – modern inferno
• Tarot symbols – the drowned Phoenician Sailor, Belladonna, etc.
• Echo of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

II. A Game of Chess

• Lavish room scene with a neurotic upper-class woman
• Fragmentation of romantic/sexual relationships
• Shift to working-class pub chatter – Lil & Albert’s relationship
• Emphasis on decay of values and empty chatter

Characters:

• Upper-class woman – possibly based on Eliot’s wife Vivien
• Lil & Albert – working-class couple with deteriorating relationship

Terms & Allusions:

• “HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME” – pub closing time, symbolic urgency
• Shakespearean echoes – Cleopatra, Ophelia

III. The Fire Sermon

• Narrated by Tiresias – seer across genders and time
• Explores themes of lust, emptiness, moral decay
• Scene of typist and clerk – mechanical, meaningless sex
• Alludes to Buddha’s Fire Sermon – “Burning burning burning”

Characters:

• Tiresias – central modern witness, both male and female
• Typist & Clerk – symbols of modern disconnection

Terms & Allusions:

• “Sweet Thames” – pastoral echo of lost beauty
• Allusions: Buddha, St. Augustine, Spenser, Mr. Eugenides

IV. Death by Water

• Describes the drowned Phlebas the Phoenician
• Highlights mortality, decay, and uselessness of wealth
• Water as both destructive and cleansing

Character:

• Phlebas – drowned sailor, symbol of death and forgotten youth

Terms & Allusions:

• “Consider Phlebas” – warning about pride and materialism

V. What the Thunder Said

• Apocalyptic vision of war, drought, and chaos
• Journey through desolate mountains and collapsing cities
• Final wisdom: “DA” – Give, Sympathize, Control (from Upanishads)
• Ends with “Shantih Shantih Shantih” – peace mantra

Characters & Figures:

• Implied: Christ, Buddha, Fisher King archetype
• Narrator is a spiritual seeker

Terms & Allusions:

• “DA” from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
• “These fragments I have shored against my ruins”
• “London Bridge is falling down” – cultural disintegration

🧠 Key Character Summary

🧾 Unique Terms & Techniques

• Unreal City – spiritual deadness of London
• Mythical Method – Modernist juxtaposition of past and present
• Objective Correlative – Emotions externalized through images (e.g., drought = spiritual dryness)
• Polyvocality – Use of multiple narrative voices
• Allusions – Multilingual and cross-cultural references
• DA – Datta (Give), Dayadhvam (Sympathize), Damyata (Control)
• Shantih Shantih Shantih – Peace that surpasses understanding