388 Eliot, T. S.
and its fragmentary nature all help to promote a
feeling of alienation.
Much of The Waste Land is composed of allusory
passages that make use of historical and literary
references to weave a narrative. These passages were
difficult even for readers of Eliot’s time, and Eliot
himself provided footnotes. By incorporating so
many sources, he guaranteed that his poem would
be comprehensible to only a few dedicated read-
ers who must be willing to engage actively with
the poem. These allusions provide a link from the
past to the poem’s present. However, Eliot suggests
in several places in the poem that these old ideas
and stories are no longer relevant. In fragmented,
postwar Europe, where traditions and old alliances
contributed to conflict, the past is a hindrance as
much as an aid.
The poem’s structure consists of five sections.
Each has its own title to set it off from the others,
and each takes up a different set of characters for its
themes. In “The Burial of the Dead,” which depicts
a vision of a shattered Europe after World War I,
spring is inverted. What is traditionally a time of
birth and new growth is here presented as a time
of dying. “A Game of Chess” looks at the personal
consequences of the war and its effect on the psyche
of people not directly involved by depicting a couple
plagued by memories of the dead and the loss of
confidence brought by war and the modern era.
“The Fire Sermon” explores the passing away of the
old London and the rise of the new (as shown by the
holiday-makers gone and the rendezvous with the
bored typist). “Death by Water” shows a metaphori-
cal passing of 19th-century materialism through the
passing of Phlebas the Phoenician. Metaphorically,
Phlebas represents the increasingly alienation of
modern Britons after the war, an alienation from
which they would not be saved. Finally, “What the
Thunder Said” shows the painful attempt to build
a new Europe in the face of the old Europe’s ruins.
The use of the Hindu parable of the thunder’s
speaking shows how different factions interpreted
this rise from the ruins of war. By addressing dif-
ferent issues in the five sections, Eliot shows the
disjunctions present in the postwar condition. These
disjunctions are also shown in the allusions in the
poem.
The poem’s fragmentary nature reflects this truth
as well. The poem is a jumble of images, references,
and conversations. The Fisher King of the fifth
section wishes to fit the fragments together into
a comprehensible whole but cannot (as shown by
the shantih invocation, which is not preceded by its
traditional “om,” the symbol of unity). Eliot says in
his footnotes that Tiresias, the blind prophet from
Greek mythology, joins all the characters together
in one personage, but Tiresias is impotent to affect
the situation and can only watch and suffer the pains
and agonies of the others. This lack of agency is
characteristic in an alienated condition as characters
feel isolated and unable to affect the strange new
world that confronts them. The fragments, too, by
their juxtaposition, often show the dislocation felt
by Europe after the war. Glories of the past are set
against sordid affairs of the present, and neither
benefits by this linking.
Eliot’s fragmented and allusive style, which
requires footnotes to understand fully, forces the
reader to struggle to read the poem. This strug-
gle—coupled with the juxtaposition of old and
new, allusion and poetic depiction—demonstrates
both the isolation of the modern individual in the
postwar culture and the strangeness of that postwar
culture, which rejects old traditions and models for
behavior.
Jeremy BrownFutility in The Waste Land
Futility is an important theme throughout T. S.
Eliot’s The Waste Land. The struggle to accept the
incomprehensible loss of life in World War I is
inherent in the poem’s fragmentary nature. The
multiple allusions to works that require footnotes
to understand them and the continual breaking in
mid-narrative all point to futility as a major thought
in the work.
“The Burial of the Dead” aptly reflects this
fragmentation. There are only a few connected bits
of narrative: the Hyacinth Girl’s story, the Lithu-
anian’s story, the trip to Madame Sosostris, and
the encounter with Stetson. None are given a sat-
isfactory end, and all show how the modern world,
especially World War I, has smashed lives. However,
even more disturbing than these microstories are