Watering the Waste Land
In T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land, he compares the life of a modern man to a “waste land” in need of rebirth and recovery. Richard Schwartz, a scholar of T.S. Eliot’s work, concluded that, “Perhaps one meets this condition due to the lack of water, which becomes symbolic of the lack of hope Eliot had in the state of the world at this time” (Schwartz). While not spelled out in black and white to the reader, one cannot miss the constant, conflicting theme of both the life giving and the destructive attributes that water plays in The Waste Land. Eliot writes this poem as if it was water itself: free flowing with constant change.
In the first section of the poem, “The Burial of the Dead”, the poet describes the parched land to be lifeless and arid. The trees are dead, the ground is dry, and the rocks are desolate. Overall, the setting is austere. It is at this point that Eliot brings in the dual representation of water. He writes, “the dry stone no sound of water [makes]” (Eliot). By referring to Moses getting water from the rocks in scriptural times, Eliot emphasizes the lack of water in the land both spiritually and physically. Here the reader senses Eliot’s overall lack of hope.
T.S. Eliot uses water as a symbol of life. Without it one’s whole world would be a “waste land”. It categorizes water as life giving fuel for fertile ground and the opportunity for new growth. The rain at the end of the poem signifies the start of a new beginning and the washing away of one's corrupt past. However, water is also a common sign of a storm, including rain, thunder and lightning: things that are very conflicting to his first image. T.S. Eliot then uses the symbolism of water to indicate death. For example, in the fourth part of Eliot’s poem, “Death by Water”, Eliot strictly portrays the negative effect water has on one’s soul. By becoming a source of