Sterile Civilisation: a reading of T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land'

World War I is infamous for eradicating an entire generation of men, men who gave up their lives to fight for their countries. Many had believed the war would be over within the year but instead it went on for four gruesome years. The reasons for so much incessant death became nonsensical. While the world had definitely progressed in terms of science and technology, for many, civilisation seemed to be in a state of regression. Modernist poet T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land is one of the greatest artistic reflections on civilisation post-WW1. It can be seen as a genealogical challenge; a “transvaluation of all values”(Nietzsche). In The Waste Land Eliot draws upon, and alludes to various myths and literature that have shaped humanity, perhaps in an attempt to reassess humanity; humanity that he has lost all faith in.

The Fisher King is perhaps the most central character in The Waste Land. The Fisher King is traditionally wounded in such a way that makes him impotent. His impotence is reflected in his kingdom, which is reduced to a barren wasteland. Eliot links the myth of the Fisher King to the legend of the Holy Grail, which also involves a quest for healing a barren kingdom. This myth is fundamentally a story about regeneration; once the king is healed so is the barren land. The Fisher King, who is first introduced during the tarot card reading epidsode in Part II A Game of Chess, “becomes the unifying device by which [Eliot] tells the fortune of the modern world”. The ancient myths help Eliot demonstrate how modern civilisation has become sterile and impotent, the barreness of mankind is reflected in his surroundings. The physical surroundings reflecting the inner core of humanity is an explicit theme throughout The Waste Land.

One of the main symbols of sterility in many of Eliot’s poems is the urban city. The city, which usually represents the pinnacle of human achievement (architecture, culture, and industry) becomes something which is decaying and is ultimately meaningless. In The Waste Land the city is described as being an “unreal city” , a phrase which is repeated in the poem. The “unreal city” symbolises a sense of it being neither completely dead, but not really alive either. The “brown fog”, a reference to Dickens’ London, that lingers over the city feels just as if it is its very breath. The colour brown insinuates pollution and decay. A parallel can be drawn between The Waste Land’s “brown fog" and the “yellow fog” of Eliot’s earlier poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. But whereas Prufrock’s “yellow smoke” seems to actively move about the city and quietly suffocate any life there, the “brown fog” feels much more encompassing, as if it has completely taken over the city and remains there in order to not let any life get through its impenetrable gloom.

It becomes evident that the city in The Waste Land is much more than just the physical urban landscape. The city is also its inhabitants and their way of life. Just like the city, the people seem to be in a state of in-betweenness. The voice in the 4th stanza of Part I The Burial of the Dead, remarks that he “had not thought death had undone so many”. These inhabitants are the undead roaming about meaninglessly. Their sterile way of life reflected in their kingdom, just like the Fisher King myth. But unlike the narrating voice, the crowd “do not share his misgivings about the Waste Land; they are not conscious”.

“And each man fixed his eyes before his feet/Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,”

These undead inhabitants of the city appear to be stuck in a perpetual state of empty ritual. The repeated use of the verb ‘flow’ indicates that they have no choice but to move about the city in a crowd which they are unable to break away from. Empty ritual is one of The Waste Land’s recurring themes. The first half of Part II A Game of Chess, depicts a wealthy lady in her house. Through her neurotic speech, which often becomes meaningless, she asks the question; “What shall we ever do?" Her answer to this resumes a sense of inevitability, a list of more empty ritual;

“The hot water at ten./And if it rains, a closed car at four./And we shall play a game of chess,”

Life is now defined by meaningless tasks, and there is no progression from day to day. A resounding lack of purpose emanates in the Lady’s talk, her relationship to her lover, and her very surroundings. The whole house becomes a microcosm of the city. Even the wealthy and cultured cannot escape the doom of modern life; “Are you alive, or not?” All the literary allusions in this scene to Shakespeare and to classical Greek myth, which usually represent such greatness of human achievement, now feel sterile and meaningless. Against the backdrop of World War 1, what difference does any artistic accomplishment or knowledge make towards humanity?

Eliot’s disdain for this empty modern life is perhaps culminated in the line “when the human engine waits”, in Part III The Fire Sermon. Humans here have literally become machines, they have lost their humanity. Finally Eliot destroys the city which seems to encapsulate the reason why modern life has lost all sense of meaning;

“Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air/Falling tower/Jerusalem Athens Alexandria/ Vienna London/Unreal”

London becomes another city in a list. A city that has reached its peak, and is therefore destined to collapse. In this light it might appear that the modern city is Eliot’s real wasteland. Its destruction could be an indication that Eliot believes we must return to a more natural way of life. The theme was further explored in Eliot's later poem The Four Quartets.

Another theme Eliot uses to demonstrate sterility in modern civilisation is through his depiction of love and relationships, or more correctly, lack of. Love is completely absent in The Waste Land. Once again the Fisher King’s impotence seems to be reflected in modern man’s inability to be in a relationship that creates life. One of the first clear indicators of this is shown in the second half of Part II. There is a clear juxtaposition between Albert who is fighting the war, witnessing the death of hundreds of soldiers everyday, and his wife Lil’s deliberate use of pills to abort one of her pregnancies. The speaking voice asks the question;

“What you get married for if you don’t want children?”

While this seems to be quite a derogatory approach to marriage, in the light of a war that is wiping out an entire generation of people, marriage and childbirth become fundamental in regenerating humanity. Yet Eliot chooses to include a preganancy that Lil “nearly died of”, an abortion, and a husband who only wants “a good time” from his wife. This demonstrates a complete breakdown in marriage, it has become meaningless, devoid of the very thing it is built on in the traditional sense; love and family.

This theme is not exclusive to this scene either. There is the episode of the merchant Mr. Euginides, who offers the narrating voice “a weekend at the Metropole”. The manner of his approach is crass. The homosexual relationship immediately sterile since preganancy is impossible. Also the episode of the secretary and her lover. The sexual intimacy becomes an assault, and she accepts the situation with “indifference”. Both of these depictions are based solely on meaningless carnal lust, in both cases the lust is only one sided. Lovemaking has become completely sterile.

Water is usually used to symobolise ideas of revival and rebirth within various cultures and societies. In Christianity for example, water is used in baptism to indicate cleansing of sin and new life, by which a person is admitted into the Catholic Church. However water has a much more ambiguous meaning within The Waste Land. On the one hand there is a definite desire for water throughout the poem. This is perhaps most explicit in the second stanza of Part V What The Thunder Said, where the whole stanza becomes a desperate monologue about the need for water;

“If there were only water amongst the rock”

Water here becomes the solution. The narrating voice is dying of thirst and needs water to survive. He is completely consumed with the need for water to quench his thirst. Given that water symbolises revival, this monologue takes on another stance. The voice could therefore be symbolically desperate for purpose that can only be found through spiritual enlightenment. With each “drip drop” the narrating voice seems to be losing his sanity more and more. And yet water still does not come. Just as the “brown fog” seems to reflect the people of modernity, so does the thunder in this scene;

“But dry sterile thunder without rain”

This line makes the situation even more desperate, for this is not a clear sky, but one that hints at a storm. Through this Eliot may be attempting to show how sterility has premeated the spiritual realm. Because man is so caught up in modern civilisation that is so far removed from a sense of spirituality, when he does eventually turn to spirituality, no solace can be given. Hence while water is still felt to be something positive in this scene, it now also signifies a more negative aspect ... sterility. In The Waste Land “[w]hen the lack of water is felt, it assumes a positive character; but for the most part it is negative or something to be feared”. This can be perceived as Eliot intentionally inverting the vegetation myth, which consequently sets a tone of fear for the regeneration of life.

Indeed one of Madame Sosostris’ most prominent prophecies is; “Fear death by water”, and many an instance can be found where death is induced by water. The direct referencee taken from Shakespeare’s The Tempest is quoted twice throughout the poem; “Those are pearls that were his eyes”. This is an obvious reference to a watery grave. The closing line of Part II alludes to Ophelia’s farewell, Ophelia who drowns in a brook. Part IV, Death By Water, seems to fulfil Madame Sosostris’ prophecy, depicting Phlebas the Phoenician who has drowned. All these instances emphasise a sense that the very water which is associated with regeneration, has now become the predominant destructive force throughout. Knowing that Eliot makes various references to Biblical episodes, it is possible to read The Waste Land as a modern version of the story of Noah’s Ark. But whereas before, God consumed humanity in a worldwide deluge, now He is seeking out everyone individually in order that modern civilisation may realise how far south we have moved from any sense of spirituality and meaning. Therefore the very entity that can renew and give life becomes that which ends life, and is therefore sterile.

Ultimately when the rain does come there is a slight sense of relief; “Then a damp gust/Bringing rain”. But rain only comes when the protagonist enters the chapel in the mountains. This location seems to be as far removed from modern civilisation as possible. It is also noteworthy that just before this scene there is the depiction of the cities being destroyed. Keeping with the Noah’s Ark allusion, it feels as if God, or a god-like figure, is reaching the end of cleansing the world from modernity. The ultimate testament to this being in the line;

“London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down”

It is not hard to imagine the bridge, which is such a characteristic feature of London, crumbling and being swept away by the river. Perhaps revival and regeneration can finally take place now.

Although Eliot reflects upon the sterility of modern civilisation, he doesn’t really offer a sense of hope until the very end of The Waste Land. Once again we see the Fisher King, fishing with the “arid plain behind” him, perhaps a symbol, sterility is now a thing of the past. He then asks the question;“Shall I at least set my lands in order?" Following this is a series of fragmented multi-lingual lines, their significance almost impossible to comprehend. They seem to have a mystical effect, as if they are part of an incantation. This would correlate well with the Grail myth, since here the Fisher King, “the protagonist in The Waste Land, as both hero and king, utters an incantation designed to bring about the restoration of life in himself and his environment”. This interpretation does take a more optimistic stance. Indeed it is difficult for many a reader to simply accept that it is impossible for civilisation to recover from choices made in the past. And yet it may just be us, the reader, crying desperately for some relief, clutching on to any fragment of hope that is possible to interpret, like the voice in the mountains crying for water. And maybe for Eliot there is no resolve, maybe all we have left “[h]ere is no water but only rock”.

Bibliography

• Asher, Kenneth. T.S. Eliot and Ideology. Cambridge University Press. 1998.
• Castle, Gregory. The Blackwell Guide to Literary Theory. Oxford; Blackwell, 2007.
• Eliot¸ T.S. “The Waste Land” & “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, in Collected Poems 1909 – 1962. London; Faber and Faber, 1963.
• Veeser, H. (ed.). The New Historicism. New York; Routeledge, 1989.


Online

• Creekmore, Betsy B. “The Tarot Fortune in The Waste Land”, ELH, Vol. 49, No. 4 (1982): 908-928. In JSTOR [database online]. 12 March 2010.
• Fowler, D.C. “The Waste Land: Mr. Eliot’s Fragments”, College English, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Jan, 1953): 234-5 pp. 234-5. In JSTOR [database online]. 12 March 2010.
• Williamson, George. “The Structure of The Waste Land”, Modern Philology, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Feb, 1950): 191-206. In JSTOR [database online]. 12 March 2010.