The Waste Land: Tone

Previous Next

The overall tone of The Waste Land is disjointed yet prophetic. The disjointedness comes from the formal composition of the poem, which depends, above all, on juxtaposition. Juxtaposition works in the poem on three different levels. First, there’s the micro-level of individual passages, where Eliot often moves from one quotation or allusion to another, often on a line-by-line basis. We readers are left to form the connections necessary to make sense of the dizzying density and range of references. Second, there’s the mid-level of the individual sections of the poem, each of which consist of two or more vignettes featuring different speakers, or “personages.” Eliot places these vignettes next to each other without any transitions, once again leaving us readers to make our own connections. Third, there’s the macro-level of the poem as a whole, which consists of five titled sections. Just as there are no transitions between vignettes within the sections, there are no transitions between the sections either. On every level, then, the poem exists as a patchwork of fragments, which generates a sense of disjointedness at every turn.

Yet for all this disjointedness, the poem is also powerfully prophetic. Eliot hints at this prophetic strain in the poem’s epigraph, which concerns an oracle-like figure known as a sibyl. Also important is the inclusion of Tiresias, the legendary figure who was struck blind by Juno (Hera) but then given the gift of foresight by Jove (Zeus). Tiresias plays a major role in the poem’s central section, “The Fire Sermon,” where he narrates the decidedly unerotic sexual liaison between the typist and her lover. Tiresias acts as an observer in this scene, watching it unfold even as he has already foreseen and “foresuffered” (line 243) everything that happens. Eliot also introduces a prophetic strain through the figure of Madame Sosostris, who performs a tarot reading in “The Burial of the Dead.” Though her reading at first seems like a scam, her warnings and visions do bear out. For instance, the one-eyed merchant reappears in the figure of Mr. Eugenides (lines 207–214). Likewise, when we read of the drowned Phoenician sailor in “Death by Water,” we clearly recall her prophetic warning: “Fear death by water” (line 55).

In addition to these acts of prophecy within The Waste Land, it’s also important to note that a prophetic tone emerges through the many references to sacred texts. The Bible is a key reference point throughout the poem. The New Testament of the Bible recounts the Resurrection of Christ and predicts his Second Coming. Yet The Waste Land questions the prophecy of the Second Coming and the salvation it promises. “What the Thunder Said” opens with a passage that recalls the Crucifixion, but which seems to insist that, like the drowned Phoenician sailor, Christ is dead and never to be resurrected (lines 322–28):

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead

Unable to envision the future salvation described in the Bible, the speaker of the poem’s final section turns to the Hindu Upanishads. Instead of prophesying salvation, the Upanishads emphasizes personal practice. As the poem’s closing lines (432–33) suggest, it is through the principles of generosity (datta), compassion (dayadhvam), and self-control (damyata) that we may arrive, in the future, at some form of inner peace (shantih):

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih