Jan 01, 2012 08:00 PM
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The theme of the poem encompasses simultaneously several levels of experience arising out of various waste lands: the waste land of religion in which there are rocks but no water: the waste land of spirit from which all moral and spiritual springs have evaporated: and the waste land of the instinct for fertility where sex has become merely a mechanical means of animal satisfaction rather than a potent, life giving source of regeneration.
The Waste Land is primarily concerned with the theme of barrenness, and symbolically this is related to the myth of the waste land, as shown by Jessie Weston in her book From Ritual to Romance.
Weston deals with the legends about the quest for the Holy Grail(the cup used by Christ at the last supper) which depict a region blighted by a cruel curse.
Consequently, nothing can grow on this land: crops and animals cannot continue their reproductive functions and the land has lost its fertility.
The plight of this waste land is also connected with the plight of the region's lord, the Fisher King. The Fisher King has been robbed of his power to procreate; he is rendered impotent either through physical sickness or maiming.
How is this curse, which has blighted the land and its Lord, to be removed? In the original legend the sterility is physical, whereas in Eliot's poem it is primarily spiritual. The poem deals with'two kinds of death and two kinds of life' and with the contrast that this fact offers.
In one context life which becomes devoid of meaning is equivalent to death, while in another context sacrificial death is shown as life-giving, as almost a means of securing the renewal of life.
The poem projects the'superb trinity of culture, sex and religion' both as a primary goal of humanity and as something responsible for the deplorable state of western civilization where these impulses work in a mutual isolation.
Eliot's poems reveals facets of these three fundamentals features of human life in their spiritual and social contexts, and attempts to project his vision of life as well as his evaluation of the condition of barrenness which afflicts modern western civilization.
(The main character of the poem is Tiresias who is an old ancient Greek mythological character and has the characteristics of both the sexes. He has watched the the depressing spectacle of modern humanity which has fallen from the ancient heights to the depths of the sea.
This is the camera eye that moves backwards and forwards, he can move about in history and in time he can become a modern city-man, a medieval, or an ancient Greek at will.) Tiresias: The Protagonist of the Poem Tiresias is the central figure in the poem. He is a spectator through out the poem.
He is a connecting link Various Stories about the Tiresias, Tiresias is bi-sexual and a detached spectator of the contemporary scene. There are various stories about the bi-sexual character of Tiresias and he how he become blind.
Story number 1- Tiresias in his youth saw the goddess Athena bathing. At this Athena became angry and she cursed him to become blind but because the mother of Tiresias was a friend of Athena. Athena bestowed on him the power to prophesy.
Story number 2- Tiresias struck two snakes with his stick while copulating. The snakes in their wrath turn him into a woman. Seven years later once again he disturbed the snakes in copulation and was again transformed into a man. In this way he had both the experiences of a man and woman.
Story number 3- One day Jove and Juno asked him whether man is more passionate or a woman.
At this he answered that the woman is more passionate. Juno became angry over the crime and turned him blind but Jove conferred upon him the twin powers of prophecy and immortality.
The mythical Background of the Poem The Grail Legend - The grail is said to be the cup in which Christ took his last supper. In this cup the blood of Christ was collected after his calcification.
The legend is about the restoration of fertility to the Fisher King who is wounded in his sexual organs. The Waste Land in which the Fisher king rules has turned barren.
A pure knight goes to Chapel Perilous to find the lance and the Grail to cure the sick king and for restoring the fertility to the land.
The mythical Background of the Poem 2 The Fisher King - It is said that in course of their quest Parsifal and his fellow adventurers happened to arrive in a country ruled over by a prince named the Fisher King.
It was one of the regions where Grail Worship had been anciently, in vogue, and a temple known as Chapel Perilous, still stood there, broken and dilapidated, as mournful memorial of what once was, but later had ceased to be.
At that time King himself had become the physical wreck, maimed and impotent, as result. It was whispered, of a sin committed by his soldierly in outraging chastity of a group of nuns attached to the Grail temple. Both the legends symbolize the contemporary degeneration and spiritual sterility.
Fisher King symbolizes the sick society. As Fisher king suffers due to his sexual sense so the society suffers due to its pervert sex.
Sex has degenerated in lust and it has limited itself to animal copulation.
