Waste Land Essay: Isolation from a Noble Past -- T.S. Eliot Waste Land

The Waste Land isolation from a Noble Past Desire to return to a fearful prehistoric is a central theme of T. S. Eliots The Waste Land. The narrators of the metrical composition consistently show dissatisfaction with the cede, and describe, with yearning, the quality of the past furthermore, Eliot portrays the contemporary world as irredeemably lost to the beauty of antiquity. In The Waste Land, the theme of isolation from a noble past is represented by descriptions of the environment, sexual corruption, and self-mechanization. Eliot opens The Fire speaking with a juxtaposition of antiquity and modernity that is centered around the Thames River. The deep past of the river has been destroyed, and the speaker laments the current condition of his environment The river bears no avoid bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette shoemakers lasts Or other testimony of spend nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors Departed, pee left no addresses. By the water system of the Leman I sat down and wept (177-82) Although this section is written in the present tense, the speaker means the Thames of the past. The Thames of the past was not polluted, and there were nymphs, giving it a mystical characteristic however, these nymphs are departed now, and the river is nothing like it utilise to be. Eliot also juxtaposes different poetic styles to further distinguish the past from the present. Amid a group of unrhymed, rhythm-less lines, he writes, Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song (175... ...ing lost the sense of Good and Evil, has ceased to be alive (46). This accompaniment death is seen very clearly during and immediately after the sexual face-off of the clerk and typist. Eliot uses desolation of environment as well to juxtapose past and present, especially when describing the unreal city. The destruction brought about by post-war modernity is rampant also in the de scription of the Thames River. Finally, Eliot shows the lack of vitality of modern stack through their voluntary self-mechanization. The characters of the present in The Waste Land have no motivation to make, or live by, their own choices, and let the cable car of life carry them where it may. The result is a stark depiction of the automation, isolation, and hopelessness that define the contemporary world.Work CitedEliot, T. S. The Waste Land. Collected Poems Harcourt New York, 1963.