The Waste Land : A Search for Redemption

Eliot grants attendry to demonstrate this empiric predicament of modern human beings. Eliot uses the image of drowning to stupefy the much overwhelming nature of metaphysical speculation in the facet of no God. The isolation and l adeptliness are like drowning to the speaker. We ingest this when the clairvoyant provides the speaker with a tarot card of a sailor, and the speaker tells us "Fear death by water," (Eliot, lines 47). The image of the card is an all(prenominal)usion, that of a Phoenician Sailor critics take to be Phlebas, (Scott, p. 58). Scott (p. 58) argues that "Phlebas, Eliot says, is your card you who are stuck in the waste land, a unilluminated Night of the Soul in which you must ?Fear closing by water,' a kind of metaphysical engulfment."

In an existential environment, the search for meaning or answers in life presents a dilemma in the face of no external or supreme being. We see that Eliot resorts to resource once more to convey this core of man's lot in contemporary society. In the succinct epigraph that opens the poem, Eliot refers to "Sibyllam quidem Cumis," (Eliot, Epig. 1). According to Parker (p. 1), Eliot is using mental imagery that conjures up "Deiphobe, the Sibyl of Cumea." Deiphobe was an oracle or 1 who supposedly conveyed the answers to man that were from the gods in ancient classic society. However, the sibyl eventually wi thered and died away which is significant to the imagery of vector decomposition in the poem previously ment

ioned. Still, the Sibyl's presence is meant to convey an image of man's search for answers and meaning in the modern world.

In conclusion, Eliot's "The Waste Land" is filled with imagery that is meant to convey his general theme, that of the emptiness, isolation, and meaninglessness of the modern world, portrayed as a waste land of sterility and decay in the poem. Throughout the poem Eliot's use of imagery achieves, in Griffin's (p. 29) opinion, a richer experience, "This is what makes the poem richly poetic, this use of highly selective and multi-colored imagery." A great deal of Eliot's imagery comes in the physique of allusion that serves to conjure up images of other things that reinforce his tone and theme.

From superannuated civilization and Christianity to nature, Eliot relies on imagery to help convey in mental pictures the message his speaker has to convey. While this message is one of isolation and alienation in a decaying and sterile environment, there is some hope of harmony and meaning in transcending the existential dilemma by connecting with nature. When this occurs, the waste land does not go away but the individual is able to arrive at a place of higher fulfillment and meaning patronage the existential condition.

While the poem will eventually unblock into the decay and sterility of modern existence, the speaker is not one in total despair over his condition. Instead, Eliot uses bird imagery to convey that even in the midst of the existential dilemma one can find some solace and harmony, (i.e. redemption). Eliot uses all kinds of imagery of birds throughout the poem, from the nightingale and hawk to the swallow and the cock. At one point the speaker uses bird imagery to provide an account of what real union is like. It is not the lack of water, or rock, or sound that is missing in life but the purposeful meaning or harmony to the combination. As Eliot (lines 355-358) writes, " provided sound of water over a rock / Where the hermit-thrush sings i
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