There was a lot of symbolism in this poem, down to the title. The "Waste Land" alludes to modern society's intellectual decline. Throughout it, the illustration of a waste land reveals to us that in Eliot's eyes, the 20th century is just a barren world with no notable attributes. And more than that, a barren world with no fertility, where nothing grows and where nothing is even encouraged to grow-still intellectually speaking. This emphasizes that mankind lacks new hope in both faith and art and is quite frankly stuck in a cultural limbo.
The symbolism is especially seen in Eliot's phrase "thunder without rain." A thunderstorm without rain is basically an empty promise. What Eliot was trying to get at it was that society can too become an empty promise when its people fail to encourage its growth and seek something fresh. The waste land is just going to stay a waste land if its inhabitants do not provide it water.
I feel like the narrator sees himself as a wanderer of this waste land, picking up the broken pieces of a culture that had a chance to be great once. He attempts to catch something unusual in these pieces, but in the end, walks away unsatisfied and continues to thirst for intellectual transformation. If we're comfortable, we're not growing, and that's the main purpose of this entire poem to me.
I commented on posts by Rebecca and Leanne.
The symbolism is especially seen in Eliot's phrase "thunder without rain." A thunderstorm without rain is basically an empty promise. What Eliot was trying to get at it was that society can too become an empty promise when its people fail to encourage its growth and seek something fresh. The waste land is just going to stay a waste land if its inhabitants do not provide it water.
I feel like the narrator sees himself as a wanderer of this waste land, picking up the broken pieces of a culture that had a chance to be great once. He attempts to catch something unusual in these pieces, but in the end, walks away unsatisfied and continues to thirst for intellectual transformation. If we're comfortable, we're not growing, and that's the main purpose of this entire poem to me.
I commented on posts by Rebecca and Leanne.
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