6/9/2023 0 Comments The waste land![]() The narrator sits on the banks and muses on the deplorable state of the world. "The Fire Sermon" opens with an image of a river. Within a few stanzas, we have moved from the upper crust of society to London's low-life. The poem drifts again, this time to a pub at closing time in which two Cockney women gossip. The next section, "A Game of Chess," transports the reader abruptly from the streets of London to a gilded drawing room, in which sits a rich, jewel-bedecked lady who complains about her nerves and wonders what to do. He spots a friend of his from wartime, and calls out to him. He remembers a fortune-teller named Madame Sosostris who said he was "the drowned Phoenician Sailor" and that he should "fear death by water." Next he finds himself on London Bridge, surrounded by a crowd of people. The narrator is now surrounded by a desolate land full of "stony rubbish." Spring brings "memory and desire," and so the narrator's memory drifts back to times in Munich, to childhood sled rides, and to a possible romance with a "hyacinth girl." The memories only go so far, however. The poem begins with a section entitled "The Burial of the Dead." In it, the narrator - perhaps a representation of Eliot himself - describes the seasons. ![]()
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