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SBufo - The Burial of the Dead
[author: Sara Bufo - postdate: 2008-01-06]

 

The Burial of the Dead

 

The title of the first section of The Wasteland epitomizes the fundamental concerns of the poem: what is the relationship between "life and death"? In what manner does death contribute to rebirth?

 

Whereas Chaucer opens his Canterbury Tales by mentioning April as the month which breeds new desires in pilgrims, making them yearn to go on , Eliot portrays this month, traditionally associated with the beginning of spring and rebirth as "the cruellest month". The need to regenerate life by "breeding", "mixing" and "stirring", the need to be active rather than remain passive as under the cover of winter is portrayed as a negative, unpleasant act.

 

Inaction and passivity or a lack of intervention is seen as preferable to being engaged in life. This theme is revisited later in the poem, when Eliot refers to the "ignavi" in Dante's Inferno who eternally run after a banner because they never "took sides" or made clear decisions in life.

After the vegetal description in the first seven lines of the section, the narrative voice of Marie is heard. She is a Central European aristocrat reminiscing about a lifestyle that has been swept away by social change at the beginning of the 20th century. Her leisury, rather fruitless existence represents a staticity and a lack of engagement in the outside world and underlines the theme suggested in the vegetal description: that it is easier to remain passive than to act.

 

The theme of the journey is also introduced. Marie describes, for example, how she experienced fear before starting a journey on a sled in the mountains, and how the journey rewarded her with a feeling of being free.

 

In the juxtaposition of this nostalgic, idyllic, conversational tone, the next section of the poem has a biblical, desolate air. Eliot describes a wasteland formed of stone rubbish, broken images, a dead tree and a dry stone. There is no visible life form, not even the sound of water which is the symbol of life, regeneration and purification.

 

There are several references to the Old Testament and an invitation to "Come in under the shadow of this red rock" - words which reflect the prophet Isaiah's prediction than men would be "as the shadow of a great rock"  is a new, just world. The physical dereliction of the wasteland represents man's spiritual emptiness and indifference. Eliot suggests that men need to be able to show "fear in a handful of dust": they need to lose their indifference and apathy.

 

Eliot's constant use of intertextuality and fragmentation is particularly evident as he quotes a romantic verse from the opera Tristan and Isolde, a story of unfulfilled love, then juxtaposes it to the sensual scene of a "hyacinth girl" whose lover seems to be unable to respond to her love.

 "Being neither/ Living nor dead": this lack of passion symbolizes an inability to procreate, to give new life, an inactivity which breeds non-existence.

In Greek mythology, hyacinths are a symbol of resurrection. Therefore, the lover's inability to respond to the Hyacinth girl could be interpreted as an inability to accept spirituality.

 

Eliot uses a mixture of style and pathos to introduce the next character: Madame Sosostris. She is "the wisest woman in Europe" but has "a bad cold". This juxtaposition of importance and banality and lack of logical connection is later developed by Samuel Beckett in his groundbreaking Waiting for Godot.

Madame Sosostris is reading tarot cards, and admits that she cannot find "The hanged Man". This is significant because the hanged man represents a person or God who sacrifices his own life in order to give life, fertility or salvation to others. Without this sacrifice, mankind remains in an apathetic state.

 

In the final section of part one, Eliot weaves together quotes from Dante, Webster and Baudelaire with a description of Londoners going to work in the City and an absurd question addressed to Stetson. Using another vegetable description, Eliot states that Stetson has planted a corpse in his garden: but it is not clear whether the corpse will bloom and generate new life or not. Time is also distorted in the reference to Stetson, who is a product of both Roman and contemporary times.

 

The Londoners going to work are seen as a "living dead" because they are indirectly compared with the inhabitants of Dante's Inferno: the damned.

Part one concludes with a quote from Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, poem in which he explores "l'ennui" or the boredom and spiritual emptiness of much of human life.

It is a direct address to the reader and suggests a universal passivity amongst mankind.