Depict the life of the Waste Landers.
The Waste Land is a notable literary work by T. S. Eliot. A complete discussion of this literary work is given, which will help you enhance your literary skills and prepare for the exam. Read the Main texts, Key info, Summary, Themes, Characters, Literary devices, Quotations, Notes, and various study materials of The Waste Land.
Answer
Depict the life of the Waste Landers. [NU: 2015, 18] ★★★
The people living in T.S. Eliot’s (1888-1965) poem “The Waste Land” (1922) are called the Waste Landers. Their lives show emptiness, despair, and loss of meaning. They appear like shadows, cut off from love, faith, and hope. Eliot uses their life to reflect the spiritual death of the modern world.
Spiritually Dead: The Waste Landers are spiritually barren. Eliot writes of “a heap of broken images, where the sun beats.” They walk like ghosts over London Bridge. They have no faith, no vision, and no light.
Loveless and Mechanical: Their relationships are devoid of emotion. In “A Game of Chess,” Lil suffers in her broken marriage. In “The Fire Sermon,” the meeting of the clerk and typist is cold and mechanical. Love has turned into empty desire. About this, the poet says,
“The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.”
Isolated and Fearful: The Waste Landers live in isolation. Eliot shows them walking with eyes fixed on the ground. They avoid human contact, showing loneliness and fear. Their conversations are broken, full of meaningless chatter.
Desire for Renewal: Though lifeless, they still long for renewal. The drowned sailor Phlebas suggests rebirth through death. At the end, the thunder speaks the three ‘Da’s followingly:
“Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata.”
The Waste Landers are given a faint hope of peace.
In short, the life of the Waste Landers is barren, loveless, and broken. They are spiritually dead, emotionally empty, and socially isolated. Yet Eliot does not end only in despair. He offers them a faint hope of renewal through discipline and peace.