Hurry please it's time - The Waste Land

The other four sections of T.S Eliot's are entitled "A Game of Chess", "The Fire Sermon", "Death by Water", and "What the Thunder Said".

On broad terms, I think The Waste Land talks about the barren and terrible world in which human society now exists. Eliot approaches this description by talking about each part of the world.

In "A Game of Chess", Eliot speaks about air, voices and scent.

In vials of ivory and colored glass,
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid--troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odors; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.

What are fragances used for? For covering bad smells or for portraying people and objects as prettier than they areally are. What does Eliot think humans are really coevring up? Further down in "A Game of Chess" he portrays what society is covering up. "My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me (sec 2 line 111)." Society seems a functioning machine that permits human progress and improvement. However, it is really unsecure and always makes the individual ask himself where it is going, ""Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak. /"What are you thinking of? What thinking? What (sec 2 line 112)?" It also makes a human ask himself why does our races continue to commit the same mistakes, " Do /You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember /
"Nothing (sec 2 line 123)?" How does society answer? With silent air, or meaningless words.

"What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
What shall we ever do?"
The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door (sec 2 line 133).

Eliot continues to portray the meaninglesness of words in society with the phrase, "Hurry up please it's time." In this phrase I find a double meaning. The first one is of ignorance and disrespect in society as this phrase calls for people to leave a British pub, and in the poem they simply disregard the order and continue talking,

When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said--
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
Hurry up please it's time
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. (sec 2 line 140)

The second meaning is directed towards the reader. In my previous blog I mentioned how Eliot urges the reader to change perspective with the verses "There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either (sec 1 line 26)." With the phrase "Hurry up please it's time" I feel Eliot is carrying a message for all readers to change the way society works.

Having seen air in Eliot's The Waste Land, the author moves forward to Fire and Water in "The Fire Sermon" and "Death by Water." In the first stanza of Fire Sermon, Eliot describes the Thames River and how it keeps on flowing and how it will keep flowing after humans,

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed (sec 3 line 177).

This reminded me of the Tao te Ching as in that text the permanent and persistent nature of water is reflected upon.

Rivers keep flowing to their oceanic destiny permanently and few forces can change them. Eliot realtes this to human life with a brief sexual encounter between a woman and a man.

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone (sec 3 line 249).

The woman had sex with an almost complete stranger, he left and she hardly cares about that. What happened happened and now its time to move on. She simply plays some music.This resembles a flowing river as whatever decadence happens in society, life will continue. Could this be a criticism of Eliot's time in particular? This was just published after a major war, and the world seem to descend into normal life again, same conflicts, same wars. Such a major force couldn't move human society into change.

The character of Tiresias was a Greek soothsayer that saw the future and predicted every major occurence in the history of Thebes. He also predicts the sexual encounter depicted in the poem, much like any human being and predict the course of a river. Despite these predictions, nothing will change their course.

In "Death by Water", the author narrates the story of Phlebas the Phoenician Sailor. He drowns in the ocean and is basically vanished form existence by the currents. I think Phlebas represents some kind of ideal, maybe democracy or peace which was really "handsome and tall" when they were introduced, but as the currents of society swept over them, their original state was entirely forgotten. Eliot then urges us to "Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you (sec 4 line 322). " This means we have to rememebr our ideals as society and go back to them to save the decadent human being.

Fire is interloped with water in "The Fire Sermon". Fire can represent the passion with which humans act. Such as the spur-of-the-moment sexual encounter in the section. This passion is what make humans do things they don't really desire, such as the sexual encounter, but the waters of society and life simply douse the fire and permit humans to relit it some other time. The Fire allegory is contiued with the mention of Carthage,

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning (sec 3 line 308)

The famous destruction of Carthage by the Romans is know for its thoroughness in destroying a whole culture and leaving only scorches of a once-great civilization. This greatly exemplifies Eliot's criticism of human impulse and passion. Adding to this, civilization's waters forgot Carthage and left the destroying Romans with all the glory.

"What the Thunder Said" represents ideas and imagination. This seems not to be as tangible as air, water or fire, but it is still a very important part of the human race as we are the only creatures, at least it is believed, that can imagine things and think outside instinct. Even this milestone in human evolution has been touched by the hand of modern society.

Hope is an ever-present human idea that gives even the most despicable person a reason to live. Eliot depicts this as two people walking in a dry land with no water. They do not attempt to find water, they just hope there would be:

If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop (sec 5 line 358)

Then Eliot ruthlessly destroys all human hope with a shot of reality, "But there is no water (sec 5 line 359)." This resembles what humans do in society, they hope to become rich, to live happily and comfortably. They live in perpetual thirst. Then comes society and splashes them with reality, showing them that they are poor, sorrounded by death and there won't be happiness.

There is another idea closely related to hope: religion. Eliot also mentions this in the poem.

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapped in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man of a woman
---But who is that on the other side of you (sec 5 line 360)?

To me, this hooded figure represents God. It allegedly accompanies every human everywhere, thus giving them hope; however it maintains this position. It gives hope but never fulfills it, thus humans will do whatever in their reach to even catch a glimpse of a fulfilled hope.


The Wasteland joins all that is human, powerlessness (earth), ignorance and cover-up (air), consistency and forgetfulness (water), passion and impulse (fire) and thought and ideals (hope).

As Eliot states it, with modern society, we can only hope for us to Hurry. It's time to change.

oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ
tat savitur vareṇyaṃ
bhargo devasya dhīmahi
dhiyo yo naḥ prachodayāt
oṃ shantih shantih shantih