“The Waste Land” is a poem written by Thomas S. Eliot in 1922. At the time, just a few years had passed since the end of the Great War (1914 – 1918) that had devastated the European scenario: its memory was still vivid in people’s minds. The poet’s purpose is to convey the desolation of a destroyed Europe, who survived with both physical and psychological damages. The shock because of the horrors of war are well summarized by Eliot in a short extract that closes the first section of the poem – “The Burial of the Dead”. In particular, Eliot draws the reader’s attention on London and its inhabitants.

London is called “Unreal City”, which is a reference to the French poet Charles Baudelaire: the adjective “unreal” recalls an atmosphere of falsity and delusion, but also conveys the idea of a “ghost city” who’s not the same as before.

In the first lines of the extract, the eye of the speaking voice follows the shadows of people who walk to work, covered by a dark (brown) foggy weather. It is a “winter dawn”, it is a new day since war’s already over, but people’s eyes are fixed in front of them, looking at nowhere, while their bodies inhale and exhale rapidly. People’s gestures convey the idea of anxiety and frustration, as suggested by the “short and infrequent sighs”, of trauma and shock as well, as suggested by their fixed empty glances: London’s inhabitants seems to be absent and distracted, their minds are unable to focus as their bodies walk automatically to offices and other workplaces, following the strokes of the Big Ben – the only means to keep a contact to reality and to daily routines. The inability to readjust to “ordinary life” is well conveyed through the expression “inter dawn”, which reminds the reader of the first few lines of the poem: indeed, at the beginning the poet said that “winter kept us warm” – the responsible to people’s shock may be the end of the war itself, maybe people thought surviving the Great War was not actually better than having died in the fight.

It is interesting to focus on a couples of lines, modelled after Dante’s “Divine Comedy”: I had not thought death had undone so many (line 63) and Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled (line 64) are references to Inferno, in particular to cantos III and IV. The two cantos are about Dante’s descent in Hell: thus, the reader is invited to make a comparison between London’s scenario and Dante’s Hell. In the end, the damned souls crowding Hell are not so different from those walking on London’s pavements. Their alienation, solitude and desolation can be seen in their eyes.

The portrait of the City is interrupted by the speaking voice’s interaction with another character. As the speaking voice follows people’s shadows through the fog, he manages to recognize a known face between them: Stetson – that’s how the speaking voice addresses him – appears to be a companion of the speaking voice’s. The reader understands from the voice of the narrator that they probably met on the battlefield during the Great War – this is an hint about the voice’s identity.

The meeting between the speaking voice and Stetson is characterized by the latter’s silence: he does not answer the questions of his interlocutor, as he seems to keep his eyes fixed into emptiness. Thus, the reader may identify Stetson as a symbol for the psychological reaction to the Great War. Like other people, Stetson has changed since the end of the war and this is confirmed by the speaking voice’s reminder of when and where they met, as if he had some trouble in recognizing him.

The speaking voice’s reminder is a reference to the battle of Mylae between Cartago and Rome, which took place in the III century BC, a very long time before the Great War that has just ended: here, Stetson is told that wars always existed and will always exist, as the poet’s negative and sad perspective comes to surface.

The speaking voice’s words later refer to the burial of a body – an image that recalls the title of the section, see above – which could either be a companion of theirs or an enemy as well. Here, the text questions the meaning and the reasons that led to such cruel, shocking conflicts and battles. The speaking voice means to ask ‘what is the point in burying such a large number of people?’, as the buried corpse stands for the meaninglessness of war.

The burial of the corpse could be followed by blossom, but it is unknown to the reader whether it happened or not: the voice’s question is not answered but surrounded with an atmosphere of uncertainty.

The last line of the section is another quotation from Baudelaire, which is meant to underline that all human beings, in the end, share something.