The Wasteland Essay Research Paper Ceremonies are — страница 2

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many components in the ceremony, a something extra that serves to break them. In The Waste Land this is demonstrated by the presence of a third person in a ceremony that should contain only two. In lines 139-166, Eliot presents a scene with “one too many”. A husband (Albert) and a wife (Lil) are about to be reunited after Albert?s four year absence. What should be a happy reunion ceremony is broken by the intrusion of a third person- Lil?s “friend”. She belittles Lil and then threatens her by saying, “And if you don?t give it [a good time] to him, there?s others will, I said./ Oh is there, she said. Something o?that, I said./ Then I?ll know who to thank, she said, and gave me a straight look.” (ll. 149-151). For a true bond occur in a relationship there must be a true

connection between two people. If one of the people in the relationship is cheating on the other, this is another example of a third person breaking a two person ceremony. In lines 360-366, Eliot writes, “Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do now know whether a man or a woman -But who is that on the other side of you? This passage shows a relationship between two people. One of them sees a third party. It is unknown if this is actually another person (as in the case of unfaithfulness) or if it is a secret “wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded” that is manifesting itself as an intruder on the

walking couple. Whatever it is, it is breaking the ceremony of the relationship and obviously bothers the speaker who mentions “the other walking beside you” three times in just seven lines. Language is very important in the genre of poetry and Eliot makes good use of it to show components of ceremonies. The way the language is used in the poem creates broken parts everywhere in the poem. Eliot?s use of anaphora is reminiscent of the chant that often accompanies religious ceremonies. The repeating in lines 121-122 (Do you know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember nothing?) is like a catechism in form. Lines 322-324 (After the…After the…After the…) also further the ritualistic, ceremonious feeling of the poem. The analectic style that Eliot employs gives the poem

a disjointed, broken feeling, almost as if the whole poem is a ceremony, and all of the analects are little cracks in what is ultimately broken. The fragmented use of allusions, combined with the foreign languages and different speakers, help establish the “unwhole” feeling of the poem. Eliot shows the dry, cracked waste land, but in the ending of the poem he gives us hope with the ritualistic chant of, “Shantih shantih shantih” (l. 434) which translates (according to the notes) as The Peace which passeth understanding. Ceremonies are prevalent throughout T.S. Eliot?s poem The Waste Land. The contrast between rituals that contain too little and rituals that contain too much show just how broken the waste land is. The actual literary tools that Eliot uses helps give the

poem an apparent broken feel. Bibliography me