The Waste Land: Isolation from a Noble Past
Desire to return to a noble past is a central theme of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The narrators of the poem consistently show dissatisfaction with the present, and describe, with yearning, the quality of the past; furthermore, Eliot portrays the contemporary world as irredeemably lost to the beauty of antiquity. In The Waste Land, the theme of isolation from a noble past is represented by descriptions of the environment, sexual corruption, and self-mechanization.
Eliot opens “The Fire Sermon” with a juxtaposition of antiquity and modernity that is centered around the Thames River. The mystical past of the river has been destroyed, and the speaker laments the current condition of his environment:
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the water of the Leman I sat down and wept (177-82)
Although this section is written in the present tense, the speaker means the Thames of the past. The Thames of the past was not polluted, and there were nymphs, giving it a mystical characteristic; however, these nymphs are departed now, and the river is nothing like it used to be. Eliot also juxtaposes different poetic styles to further distinguish the past from the present. Amid a group of unrhymed, rhythm-less lines, he writes, “Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song” (175...
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...ing lost the sense of Good and Evil, has ceased to be alive” (46). This “living death” is seen very clearly during and immediately after the sexual encounter of the clerk and typist. Eliot uses desolation of environment as well to juxtapose past and present, especially when describing the “unreal city.” The destruction brought about by post-war modernity is rampant also in the description of the Thames River. Finally, Eliot shows the lack of vitality of modern people through their voluntary self-mechanization. The characters of the present in The Waste Land have no motivation to make, or live by, their own choices, and let the machine of life carry them where it may. The result is a stark depiction of the automation, isolation, and despair that define the contemporary world.
Work Cited
Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land. Collected Poems Harcourt : New York, 1963.
In 1935, Gillespie decided to shift his focus from school to family. He moved to Philadelphia with his family and joined a group whose leader was Frankie Fairfax. Charlie Shavers was also a part of the band. “Shavers knew many of the trumpet solos of Roy Eldridge, and Gillespie learned them by copying Shavers (he had previously known only a handful of phrases by Eldridge, the man who became his early role model). While he was in Fairfax's band, Gillespie's clownish behavior earned him the nickname he has carried ever since” (“Dizzy Gillespie”).
Brand, Russell. "Russell Brand and the GQ Awards: 'It's Amazing How Absurd It Seems.'" The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 13 Sept. 2013. Web. 23 Mar. 2014. Russell Brand’s commentary and defense of what occurred at the GQ awards.
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Constitution is a necessary feature as it defines how power is disseminated within the government and establishes the rights of the citizens and the laws and rules for the country. In order to be successful, a country’s should reflect and satisfy every citizen’s needs and interests.
Eliot, T.S. The wasteland. In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1447-1463.
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The Human Rights Act of 1998 was co-founded upon the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950. Developed following the ending of the Second World War, European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was constructed to further the idealistic principles and endeavours of equality among all human beings, as well as a devout declaration of preventing the reoccurrence of the holocaust and massacres which have occurred as a casus belli . ECHR comprises civil privileges and liberties fundamental to all human beings irrespective of race, gender, age, sexual orientation exclusive of discrimination. The UK government have promptly endorsed the ECHR, recognising the need of ...
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The single-sex format creates opportunities that do not exist in the coed classroom. (Edison 1) Researchers are unaware that both genders brains function differently. This lack of knowledge may be why the real truth about single-sex education being more efficient than co-ed education has not been discovered. Some say single-sex education may be the key for a brighter generation. It shows to improve test score dramatically. The number of public schools experimenting with single sex classes is now reported to be more than 350. (Silva 130) Some research also shows that single-sex classes have a more welcoming atmosphere. Single-sex education improves grades while coed educations keep an average pace.
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The influence of World War I was also seen in Eliot’s work. According to Johnson, “…artists clung to the shards of classical culture as a buffer against nihilistic disillusionment. "These fragments I have shored against my ruins," T.S. Eliot wrote in "The Waste Land" (1922)” (1). Eliot’s writing in “The Waste Land” depicts scenes of war and also ties into the destruction of western culture.
Ceremonies are prevalent throughout T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. Eliot relies on literary contrasts to illustrate the specific values of meaningful, effectual rituals of primitive society in contrast to the meaningless, broken, sham rituals of the modern day. These contrasts serve to show how ceremonies can become broken when they are missing vital components, or they are overloaded with too many. Even the way language is used in the poem furthers the point of ceremonies, both broken and not. In section V of The Waste Land, Eliot writes,