THE WASTE LAND: The Fire Sermon

What does Eliot do in this section?

Eliot creates imagery of a bleak and barren land suggesting a complete lack of vitality and life in the new century.

‘The nymphs are departed’

      Repetition of ‘The nymphs are departed’ – mythological allusions to the creatures and spirits of nature suggests a melancholic farewell to imagination, faith, nature and life. The short nature of the sentence and the end stop creates a mournful narrative voice of acceptance at this barren waste land.

‘Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song’

  ‘Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song’ – imperative creates a pleading tone, suggesting the speaker’s desperation for any type of life to remain. Intimate term of address creates a poetic tone of romanticization and aligns the speaker with nature, making the tragedy of its loss even more potent, as if it is a failed love story.

Imagery of pollution

   Disgusting imagery of pollution and corruption reflects the effect of humans greed on the beauty of nature, seen in the asyndetic listing ‘bottles, sandwich papers, silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends’. Yet ironically, the narrator states that even these are not present, reflecting the utter lack of life that even humans do not have a trace.

Character of Tiresius

    ‘I Tiresias’ – Eliot claimed that Tiresias was the most significant character in 'The Waste Land', uniting all the rest. In mythology, Tiresias was transformed into a woman for seven years, experiencing both male and female existence. Eliot uses him as a symbol of the blurred boundaries between genders and perspectives, emphasizing fragmentation and disconnection in the modern world. Although blind, Tiresias can "see" the truth, making him a symbol of insight amid ignorance. This contrasts with the spiritually blind inhabitants of Eliot’s modern wasteland, who are incapable of meaningful vision or redemption.

Character of the ‘typist’

      Characterisation of the ‘Typist’ – asyndetic listing ‘clears her breakfast, lights her stove, and lays out food in tins’ reflects the characters studious, routine-driven nature as well as the dryness and sterility of the modern world in which characters are define by their occupation.  

Character contrast

Character contrast between a women in a neat and clean world of order with the repugnant epithet of the ‘young man carbuncular’ (suggesting a lack of hygiene as it connotes warts/boils on his face)

The sexual encounter

    Lexical field of war intrinsically linked to sexual encounters – ‘endeavours’ ‘assaults’ ‘defence’, etc suggesting an unwanted attack contrast to what sex is at its core: connection and love. A lack of consent is hinted at ‘still are unreproved, if undesired’, ‘she is bored and tired’ – reflecting the inherent sterility that are now implicit in modern relationships. Clearly, the overwhelming loneliness of the typist has led her to desperation for connection even if she despises enacting the sexual encounter. Continuous motif of sexual corruption contrasts Eliots initial allusion to the passionate and love-fuelled relationship of ‘Isolde and Christian’. Perhaps the speaker is lamenting the loss of the Romantic’s notion of free love and sexuality, commenting the dryness of modernity.