Alienation In The Waste Land

T.S Eliot was a famous British poet affluent for his modernist views on society. He was deemed “one of the twentieth century’s major poets” . In 1922, Eliot published The Waste Land in the Criterion, a famous British magazine. The Waste Land is a multifaceted poem which discusses the difficulties of moral and cultural aftershocks of World War I. Eliot portrays his view of modern society with the poem that exemplifies themes of futility and alienation. The poems use of ‘waste’ does not represent the aftermath of war but rather the “emotional and spiritual sterility of Western man” . The Waste Land defined modernistic poetry and become the most influential poem of the century. It was influential of its time, during which Georgian poetry was romantic,

During the time of publication, Eliot was experiencing a time of personal issues, his marriage was failing and both himself and his wife were suffering from nervous disorders. Georgian poetry was the standard of the twentieth century, focusing on natural imagery and rural settings, however Eliot, an American outsider found it outdated and unreliable to the time. Eliot was heavily influenced by the work of Baudelaire who often wrote about the modern urban city. The complexity of the narrative structure is why this poem has been deemed as modern literature, it is known for its fragmented and obscure nature, creating a commentary on society and its lack of values and tradition. Although radical in narrative, the last lines of the poem “Shanti shanti shanti” which translates to the word peace, has many readers hopeful about humanity’s redemption. Eliot’s use of foreign cultures almost creates an openness to be rescued by a God or religion. Belief in a higher power almost presents hope and

The narrator, arguably Eliot himself, describes the transitions of seasons. it is comprised of four vignettes, each seemingly from the perspective of a different speaker. The structure of the first section reflects the rest of the poem, whilst it begins with April being described as the “cruellest month” , a juxtaposition when April is usually a time of renewal; it shifts by line 11, where the fragmentation of two languages changes the readers line of thought. The perspective of the narrator appears to be a German woman, whose use of seasons reflects the state of her current existence, “I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter” . Eliot incorporates specific memories which reflect the narrator; sledding with a cousin, coffee in the city of Hofgarten and rain showers by the Starnbergersee. In the second stanza, the narrator changes perspective, Eliot uses biblical language, quoting Ezekiel 2.1 and Ecclesiastes 12.5 and constructs a dialogue between the narrator “the son of man” and a higher power. “The son of man” is searching for signs of life however, all he finds is “a heap of broken images” (Eliot, 1999). It is almost prophetic, how the speaker offers to show the reader “something different from either… your shadow at morning striding behind you/or your shadow at evening rising to meet you”. Within this poem, there is a recurring theme of death, “lilacs out of the dead land… the dead tree