Eng426 20th century english literature

Themes and Techniques in T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”

It is good to bear in mind that Eliot dwells a lot on antithesis and paradoxes in this poem as well as biblical and historical allusions which inform the themes that we can find in the
poem. The themes discussed below are not exhaustive of the themes we can find in the poem but they are some of its central themes. You are advised to read the poem and come up with suitable themes for the issues the poet raised in the poem.


Death and Rebirth: From the title of the sections “The Burial of The Dead” and “Death by Water”, one could deduce that the theme of death is central to them. Death is shown as the end of existing and as the phenomenon that is always present with living beings. The example in Section V substantiates this point “He who was living is now dead/We who were living are now dying/With a little patience (Lines 7-10).The images of Christ’s death calls to mind the fact that by dying there is hope for whatever is dead as there is hope for a new life. By referring to different seasons and what they connote, Eliot shows that though there should be changes, everything is really cyclical and it does not change much. Water is used as a symbol for rebirth but it could also cause death. For Eliot, death and rebirth are interwoven as there really is no rebirth without first dying, alluding to Christ’s death and resurrection.


Love and Lust: Matters of sexuality are prominent in “The Wasteland” and are the cause of the problem that we can see in “The Fire Sermon”. Eliot talks about a female typist and a carbuncular man, and other instances of sexual relations. Though lust and illicit sex might be sinful, Eliot as seen in this poem seems to prefer it to passivity and coldness. Sex produces and renews life as against infertility and depression that its absence brings. It brings excitement being an antidote for boredom and tiredness as seen in these lines:

The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired,

Flushed and decided, he assaults her at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference. (Section III, Lines 63-71).

In “The Burial of The Dead” and “A Game of Chess” love is seen as being destructive. This could also be seen in the third section of “The Burial of the Dead” where the hyacinth girl is forgotten. According to Brooks, the love of the past (traditional) was enduring and real but the love in modern times is transitory and unreal. But the love we see in “The Wasteland” is rotten and the sex is only for selfish reasons.

Alienation: the people in the wasteland find it difficult to express their feelings. They are locked up in their worlds, imprisoned with no hope of getting released especially as they are self-centred. In the second section, “The Game of Chess”, where a process of seduction is described, the woman desperately calls on her lover to say something, probably to calm her nerves but nothing comes out from the entreaty:
“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. “What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? “I never know what you are thinking. Think”
Even here, where the lovers are expected to communicate their thoughts to each other, there seems to be a break and a palpable coldness permeates the atmosphere. In addition, the sounds produced by humans are “sighs” and “cries” while the gramophone and mandoline produce the music that breaks the silence in Section III.