The Wasteland

   While reading T.S. Eliot’s poem The Wasteland, I was unsettled. Even when I listened to it, I felt like something was missing. Then, I realized that is the effect Eliot wanted his work to have on his audience. The reason the poem leaves the reader waiting for a conclusion is because the Wasteland is symbolic for a life lacking purpose and action.

    The Wasteland is a world devoid of the supernatural and, consequently, higher purpose. Within part I of The Wasteland, titled “The Burial of the Dead,” Eliot details a desolate land:
    What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
    Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
    You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
    A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
    And the dead tree gives no shelter, and the cricket no relief,
    And the dry stone no sound of water (I.19-24).
Eliot is describing a land devoid of life and comfort, a world that lacks a spiritual or supernatural aspect. The stony ground implies that the land is not good for growth. The reason for the desolation is the lack of supernatural rebirth that Eliot parallels to a passage in Ezekiel (2:1). The book of Ezekiel details God’s interaction with the prophet of the same name; the prophet foretells the restoration of the temple and the people of Israel. This spiritual rebirth is lacking The Wasteland. In addition to a desolate land, the audience is also apparently viewing the world in an incomplete way. When the world is viewed through broken images, the viewer is unable to understand it. Perhaps a helpful analogy to understand this broken viewpoint is to think of the view seen through a kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscopes sometimes distort images, and distorted, shattered images offer no comfort or understanding to the viewer. Without a spiritual element, the land is devoid of life and purpose.
 
    The Wasteland is a life spent waiting. In the second part of the poem, titled “A Game of Chess,” Eliot paints a chilling scene. Within an elaborately decorated room, a couple waits for their death. Wind howls under the door and distresses the woman who seems like she is already predisposed to madness.
     “What shall I do now? What shall I do?
       I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
      With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
      What shall we ever do?” (II.131-134)
The woman is afraid because she doesn't know what the next step entails. The speaker, possibly her husband, answers her hysterics in a disconnected manner. In his answer, the speaker reveals the routine of the couple:
      The hot water at ten.
      And if it rains, a closed car at four,
      And we shall play a game of chess,
      Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door (II.135-138).
The couple has a mindless routine that they continue, waiting for the knock on the door. The knock on the door is their death that will end their routine. I was confused as to how this situation related to chess, but I believe it can be reasonably inferred that Eliot is using the waiting couple to symbolize the aspect of chess where you must wait for your opponent’s next move. Chess is all about strategy and predicting the moves your opponent is going to make. In the Wasteland, the strategy aspect is missing from the game. All that is left are the pieces waiting to be acted upon.
 
   The Wasteland lacks purpose because its inhabitants are focused solely ongoing through the motions of life. To illustrate how many people are living this way, Eliot writes of an “Unreal City”: “Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, / A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, / I had not thought death had undone so many” (I.61-63). If this quote sounds familiar, it’s because Eliot is referencing Dante in Inferno when he sees the souls around the gates of Hell. The souls were of people who had not done anything exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. These people had spent their lives waiting for death instead of living with a purpose. This lukewarmness permeates through humanity because so many people are focused only on this life. Continuing his description of the masses, Eliot writes,  “Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, / And each man fixed his eyes before his feet” (I.64-65). Again, this is a description of people who are just going through the motions. They have no reason to lookup, no reason to hope for something different. A life where there is nothing beyond it is a life without purpose. When a person is without Christ, he does not have a reason to live life the best he can. God’s hand in creating us and everything around us gives life meaning and purpose. We look to the life beyond to guide us through the current on.

   The Wasteland is a poem full of symbolism and references to mythology and historical events. Tying all the different characters and interactions together is the idea of this Wasteland that all the characters seem to be in. The problem with living in the Wasteland is that it is a land built on broken images where no one takes decisive action. The lack of proper sight leads to misdirection. When purpose and action are taken away, the result is a journey’s conclusion that doesn’t seem that different from its beginning.