Oh! A Farewell to us! (Waste Land section 1)

The first section of the intricate compilation of poems by T.S. Elliot, The Waste Land, is called “The Burial of the Dead”. Here, Elliot talks about Death in a human’s life; however, he does it in a strange and rather confusing way. And, although it may seem weird that a author would try to confuse his/her reader, I think Elliot in fact tried to confuse the reader in this section to give him the mood of what Death is really about. Basically, there is no form of narrating what awaits us after Death, reason for why Elliot tried to confuse his reader, to make the reader feel that anxiety of knowing what awaits us after death strikes. Elliot then demonstrates how many people trying to escape that uncertainty of what happens after death, recur to the horoscope or the Tarot.

Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor... (Elliot, line 46).

The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. (Elliot, line 55)

…Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days. (Elliot, line 59).

Another thing that caught my attention was the usage of other languages in the middle of the poem by Elliot: “Firsch weht der Wind Der Heimat zu. Mein Irisch Kind, Wo weilest du?” (Elliot, line 34). What is Elliot trying to do by just speaking in a random language in the middle of the stanza? Is he trying to prove his authority over the speaker? I hope this doubt is later answered.

As I kept reading, I noticed that Elliot mentioned the “Son of Man”:

…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, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. (Elliot, line 24).

What does Elliot mean by the “Son of man”? Is he referring to the creations of men, or the simple creation of other human beings by one man (Adam)? I really don’t know, but what I interpreted of this excerpt is that Elliot is criticizing (harshly) the human race, because it only has bad memories of wars, violence, poverty, inequality, etc. the human race is constantly surrounded by these problems and, apparently, it is doing little to nothing to fix them. As Elliot mentioned the ironies of a tree giving no shelter, or a cricket no relief, I instantly pictured a constant suffering of a being, and isn’t that constant suffering reflected on many humans? My answer is yes.

I found a metaphor in this section of The Waste Land where Elliot compares rocks, with situations. “Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations” (Elliot, line 50). Notice, that Elliot states that the same lady (Belladonna) represents both rocks and situations, giving the reader a sense of similarity between these two things. I personally thought how rocks constantly change and shift their positions depending on the environment conditions, just like situations change depending on their context. This analogy speaks only the truth, since life is filled with situations that are constantly being altered, changing humans’ lives.

And I will show you something different form either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust… (Elliot line, 30)

The sentence above caught my attention above all the sentences that compose this poem. Elliot describes fear as something humans have rarely experienced, when I believed that we as humans are in constant fear of something bad to happen. Why is that? Why does Elliot look at fear as something so rare? However, he then makes and opposition to the rareness of fear and describes fear as being so common as to be in a handful of dust. Why? Why? Why? Is this a way used by Elliot to tell the reader that there is more to fear? That we should fear about the destiny of the decaying society we live in?

The hyacinth flower is mentioned in “The Burial of the Dead”, making me think about the Greek myth of the creation of this flower. In accordance to the Greek mythology, Apollo killed this chilled who he loved dearest, and, to honor him, he made the hyacinth flower sprout from his sepulcher. I thought of Elliot using the hyacinth flower to indicate the honor we (the living) do to the dead.

‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’
Yet when we came back, late, form the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither living nor dead, and knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence. (Elliot, line 42)

This hyacinth girl was a signed of death, and how, she is being mourned by someone as she looks into the light; however, the hyacinth has a bulbous form, which in turn is similar to a uterus which in fact gives LIFE. As a consequence, Elliot could be implying that in fact that death is a rebirth, either spiritual or physical, I don’t know.

I found very interesting the ending of this section: “You! Hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!” (Elliot, line 76). Elliot directly talks/relates to the reader of his poem as a hypocrite, although brother and similar of Elliot. I believe Elliot is saying that every human being is an hypocrite because he or she chooses to ignore one or more faults in society such as war, poverty, inequality, etc. this is also speaks only the truth.