Myth In T. Eliot's The Waste Land

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Eliot uses several myths in the poem by gaining inspiration from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Eliot makes use of myths from fertility cultsinterpreted by Jessie Weton, Sir James Frazer and others,Christian mythology and Greek mythology.He weaves the theme of both physical and spiritual barreness,decay,death,re-birth in the myths and in the modern world.His purpose is to link the predicament of man in the past and the present. According to A.G. George, The waste Land contains “A series of emotions and impressions of the poet which are expressed through the objective correlative of the mythical waste lands, a series of emotions and also impressions which originate in the Poet’s mind as he surveys human life in the present as well as in the past.” The …show more content…

He connects this myth with the legend of Holy Grail in Jessie L. Weston’s work From Ritual to Romance. It tells how a questing knight, Parsifal restores the fertility in the Kingdom which was barren due to the impotence of the ruler of the Kingdom known as the Fisher King. Eliot associates the myth of the Fisher King with the modern world where there is spiritual sterility or lack of faith in God that caused loss of values, frustration, hopelessness, chaos, aimless existence, domination of lust over love and so on which are also the outcomes of the First World War and the development in Science and technology. Eliot suggests that like Parsifal who searched for the Holy Grail and made the Kingdom of the Fisher King fertile, if modern man or woman search for spirituality, he or she will undergo a re-birth and find ultimate solutions to his or her problems. Eliot also draws a parallel between the legend of Holy Grail and the myth of Bhagirath who.....................Thus Eliot links the legend of Holy Grail. myth of Bhagirath and the modern world which is through the theme of …show more content…

Eugenides which is against the order of nature. Eliot fuses the Christian mythology, fertility myths and the myth of the Fisher King to depict the spiritual barrenness and the possibility of spiritual re-birth of modern man. Jesus Christ has died to wash away the sins of man. The image of fertility gods to enhance fertility of the land .Hanged god of Frazer.The barren land can be compared to the heart of modern man which is full of lust, selfishness, and immorality and so on. This sinfulness of man leads to suffering and spiritual death of man. Buddhism -suffering. In the poem the yearning of the inhabitants of the wasteland for water can be compared to the yearning of modern man for water of spirituality. Water symbolizes life, fertility and purification. By providing drowning images in the poem Eliot suggests that death by water is the death of sins in modern man if he seek the God which will pave the way for

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