Here She Be — The Battlements

This is a bit old, but I thought there were some good thoughts in it, so I decided to go ahead and post it. It’s a very quickly written draft of an analysis of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”

     In the closing of “The Waste Land,” “What the Thunder Said,” Eliot moves towards the form of a Vedic/Hindu Upanishad. This alone suggests a move towards the essential qualities, and he does so by revisiting several of the major incidents/events of the poem. It bears a striking similarity to Joyce’s own Sirens’ song, which forecasts the events of the Sirens chapter in Ulysses.
     First, the recapitulation of events. “London bridge is falling down” takes hold of several of the major moments of “The Waste Land.” We revisit the references to cities tumbling down, and that sense described as “Unreal.” The reminder is brief, but not inefficient in encapsulating the simultaneity of the terror of the “Unreal City” and the strange sort of play that is inherent in the nursery rhyme. We hear the whimsical laughter from within the scream. Likewise the image of London Bridge reminds us of the souls swarming over it, as our narrator speaks: “I was not aware death had undone so many.” “Shall I set my lands in order” hearkens back to this sense of unmitigated chaos that transcends the varied viewpoints of the poem. Similarly, “A Game of Chess” dealt with order and time (“HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME”) only to unfold to chaotic relationships, abortion, and a general collapse that opens onto “The Buddha’s Fire Sermon.”
     Amidst this interplay of the recurrent images, Eliot uses Hinduism in an intriguing way. Buddhism, which was a reaction to Hinduism in India, and “The Fire Sermon” emphasize self-control, which interestingly enough is the definition of “Datta.” Self-control, the giving of alms, and compassion, or “Datta,” “Dayadhvam,” and “Damyata,” are the essence of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad from which they are taken, and they also are the controlling features of “What the Thunder Said.” They are the last three things here besides “Shantih,” and it does not seem farfetched to say that they encompass section five and reiterate it here. The importance of this image plays two-fold. The Upanishads in Hinduism are the Vedanta that close each of the traditional Vedas or religious texts and are recognized as the essence, or even the quintessence of essence, in those texts. Eliot has likewise brought to bear the full-force of “The Waste Land” in its final lines. He also shows an Upanishad that focuses on interpreting the same word “Da” three diferent ways, which works similarly to “hypocrite lecteur,” but instead of attacking the readers to connect them to the piece’s meaning, he simply provides an example of multiple levels of interpretation. [add discussion about connection to Babel]
     He closes of course with “Shantih,” which is the same ending to the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. It seems an important gesture, offering the reader peace beyond comprehension after cavorting them through a sort of Hell. With the heavily laden imagery of death (remember London Bridge?) that seems so terrifying, it is a powerful arrival to recognize that death is often seen as peaceful, and in ways we might never understand (except maybe in death).
     Of course, the most amazing line is “These fragments I have shorted against my ruins.” Welcome to Modernism! The line alone deserves at least a Pulitzer. The “fragments” signify all these things of “The Waste Land.” We unite multiplicity of points of view, the convergence of gender, the prophets, the history, the visions, everything, and we set them abreast of ruins. Ruins, of course, is open to interpretation like anything else herein–it could be broken history, the last vestige of a civilization, some other kind of historical evidence, the failure of upholding columns much like Housman’s mercenaries that “hold the sky suspended,” “the Archaic Torso of Apollo” (not actually but same idea as the poem)–but inadequacy seems very reasonable as well. Without all this connectedness and variety we, alone, are lost and have fallen short. But we are not without these things as they are in fact what make us who we are.
     That is how this closing recapitulates the poem. [look to show how the progression corresponds to the Fisher King legend and the question of freeing the land]