Symbols in The Waste Land

Answer

What symbols are used by the poet in “The Waste Land”?

“The Waste Land” (1922) by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) displays the devastation and despair caused by World War I. According to Ezra Pound, who furnished the poem after Eliot’s composition, the poem represents the collapse of Western civilization. Thematically and rhetorically, “The Waste Land” describes a postwar landscape of fractured identity and people who cannot connect meaningfully with the world surrounding them.

The fundamental concept of Symbolism: A word has two-fold meanings: original meaning and targeted meaning. Symbolism is the study of the targeted meaning of the words. For example, white colour symbolizes purity; likewise, a dove is a bird but symbolizes peace. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, “symbol is a sign, shape or object that is used to represent something else which means to represent a quality or idea”. The wheel in the Indian flag is a symbol of peace. Eliot uses symbols in his poem “The Waste Land” to express the massive idea of a fractured civilization.

Fragmented form of poetry as a symbol: “The Waste Land” is formed in a fragmented structure, unlike the traditional poetry form. For example, the poem begins with “April is the cruellest month, breeding.” At first glance, the nonsensical starting words may seem more frustrating, like Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”, which suggests we get even more frustrated with April’s ‘sweet showers’. However, when you get to Line 11 of the poem “The Waste Land, the frustrating expectations will be shattered because such a start symbolizes the restless mental state of modern man.

The versatile symbolic meaning of water: Water is a significant symbol of birth, death, and resurrection throughout this poem. At the poem’s beginning, water stands for life-giver and symbolizes fertility. However, it also stands for death in the “Death by Water” section. The symbolic meaning of water in this section is taken from one of Shakespeare’s best plays entitled “The Tempest”. However, in the “What the Thunder Said” section, water is a symbol of hope because, according to Eliot, the resurrection of