What the Thunder Said: Exercises pg 559, Making Waves 2

Comprehension

1- In the first part of the section there are many references to Christ and his disciples journey to Emmaus. "The frosty silence in the gardens" and "the shouting and the crying" are references to Christ's imprisonment and to his agony during the way to Golgotha and to his death for crucifixion.
There is a reference to disciples' journey to Emmaus when the narrator announces the presence of a third person who is following them.
"The maternal lamentation" may be Virgin Mary lamentation for her dead son.
In the second part of the section there are references to the Holy Grail legend. The first one is the introduction of a chapel, that is difficoult to reach, that is the Chapel Perilous of the legend. Here there is another reference to Christ death: the cock voice recalls to the mind Christ that announces during the Last Soup that one of his disciples would betray him.
In the third part of the section there are rferences to the present decay of Eastern Europe. The first one is the reference to 20ieth century man's egotism throughout the Sanskrit words of the Thunder. Other references are the prison and Coriolanus' behaviour, the London Bridge that is falling down, Dante Alighieri's verses from Purgatorio and the reference to the Prince of Aquitaine.

2- The images associated with sterility are: "frosty silence" (line 2), "stony places" (line 3), "no water but only rock" (line 10), "mountains of rock without water" (line 13), "sweat is dry" (line 16),
"dead mountain mouth of carious teeth" (line18), "there is not even silence in the mountains" (line 20), "dry sterile thunder" (line 21), "solitude in the mountains" (line 22), "dry grass" (line 34), "white road" (line 41), "cracked earth" (line 49), "bursts in the violet air" (line 52), "falling towers" (line 53), "decayed hole among the mountains" (line 57), "dry bones" (line 63), "the arid plain behind me" (line 95).

Interpretation

1- Thunder advices man that, if his behaviour does not change, his life will be more oscure than now.

2- The fragments are pieces of the cultures of the whole world and of man, who is crumbling because he is arid as the

 earth. Man has not anymore values and ideals, he is only an empty covering, who thinks only of himself and about his own interests, accepting everything happens.

3- In the concluding lines the message the poem conveys is that man has to find a new sense in his life. The last words are in Sanskrit because it is the most ancient language of the world, the origin of the culture.

5- Mr Eliot's poetry is very complex and, without notes, I understood only a little part of the poem. After reading the poem again and the notes, I think it is difficoult but also very interesting because of all references to many other literary works that are very important for our culture and because he really managed to present the decaying and the disgregation of contemporary society.

6- Obscurity in Mr Eliot's poetry is caused by the use of many references to other literary works, myths and legends that people may not know.

8- Virginia Woolf underlines that T.S. Eliot's style is not linear, but he presents fragments of many scenes and the reader has to pass from line to line, changing always scene and points of view, but it is the real representation of their contemporary society. Mrs Woolf underlines also that his lines are beauty and intense.

9- Mr Eliot, Mrs Woolf and Mr Joyce are similar because they write about the man and his consciousness, even if in different ways. They are interested into show how world and man really are, without presenting heroes but showing the decaying of reality and of human being. They think it is necessary man understands himself and he explores his inner part, going beyond the surface and appearances because it is only in this way he can improve himself and the society where he lives.