The Water Motif —Both Positive and Negative — in Eliot's "The Waste Land"
Anya Pavlov-Shapiro
For International Baccalaureate English
1998
In his poem "The Waste Land," T.S. Eliot employs a water motif, which represents both death and rebirth. This ties in with the religious motif, as well as the individual themes of the sections and the theme of the poem as a whole, that modern (1920s modern) man is in a waste land, and must be reborn.
In the first section, "Burial of the Dead," water (or the lack thereof) has a primarily negative meaning. It is first mentioned in lines four and nine, in reference to April, which the narrator calls "The cruellest month." Later, the narrator describes an arid scene, in which the "Dry stone [gives] no sound of water" (24). Next, the narrator describes "The hyacinth girl" (36) (who may or not be the narrator himself): "Your arms full, and your hair wet" (38). It is implied in this scene that the girl has either just been raped, or has had at least a negative sexual experience. Each of these references to water corresponds to the waste land; the usually pure symbolism of water is twisted to become negative, and in each scene there is some perversion such as rape.
After the hyacinth scene comes "Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante" (43), who speaks of the Tarot cards and the "Drowned Phoenician sailor" (47) as well as "Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks" (49). Sosostris advises the person she is reading, presumably the narrator, to "fear death by water" (55). However, the psychic's words are deceptive. Although water implies death in both cases (Belladonna is a siren, a creature who calls men to their deaths by singing), which would seem to be negative, the theme of the section is that death must precede transformation and rebirth. Death in this case is tied to religion; in many religions, gods are burned or drowned in effigy so that they may be reborn, in accord with religious myth. Therefore, from a religious standpoint, these references to water are actually positive.
In fact, this rebirth is referred to at the end of the section, only with the god being planted and then dug up instead of burning or drowning: "That corpse you planted last year in your garden,/Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?" (71-2) The death in this instance refers to the spiritual and cultural death of the people of Europe after World War I, and the rebirth is their anticipated reawakening.
In the second section, "A Game of Chess," water is referred to during a dialogue between a husband and a wife. They are discussing what to do that day, or any day, and in their tone and words they exhibit their ennui. The activities described include "The hot water at ten./And if it rains, a closed car at four" (135-6). Again, these references are negative, and typical of the perversity of the waste land. Whereas water is usually seen as desirable and purifying; here it is merely for a regular bath, or something to get away from. This is characteristic of the deadening of the people to nature and beauty, as part of their spiritual death. The pair's boredom with life ties into the section's theme that sex without love in the modern world has become a battle within and between the sexes. This is yet another aspect of the waste land, and parallels the negative symbolism of the water; whereas the couple should be happy and loving, they are bored and disinterested, almost at war.
The third section, "The Fire Sermon," contains two sections of long description of the Thames River:
