The Waste Land

This Ppt is on the poem Waste land by T.S.Eliot.

1. The Waste
Land
-By T.S.Eliot

2. Our team
Ridhdhi
Rathod
Rinkal
Dangar
Nirali
Dabhi

3. Key Facts
01
03
Table of contents
02
(About Author and
Text)
Context 04
06
Important
Characters
05Major Themes
Plot Overview
Sources

4. Biography of Author
ThomasStearnsEliotOm
Born:26September,1888,St.Louis,missouriin
UnitedStates
Died:4January,1965London,UnitedKingdom
Hewasgreatpoet,essayist,publisher,playwright,
literarycriticandeditor
Consideredoneofthe20thcentury'smajorpoetshe
iscentralfigureinEnglishlanguagemodernist
poetry.
Education:Harvarduniversityinoxford
Hewaswinsthenobelprizeinliterature4nov1948.
HeusesmanyTechniquessuchasimagism,
repetition,fragmentation, andothermodern
Techniques.

5. ●Notable
works
●The Hollow men
●The Love song of J
Alfred
●Prelude
●Journey of the Magi
●Ash Wednesday
●Burnt Norton
●The waste land
●The play murder in
the cathedral
●Four Quartets
●Little Bidding
●East coker
●Common Themes of his
poetry
●Love
●Death
●Religion
●Nature
●Beauty
●Aging
●Desire
●Identity

6. About the text
Representative piece of 20th century published in book from 1922
most widely translated and studied English Language poem.
●434 lines
Five parts :
●The Burial of the dead
●A Game of Chess
●The fire sermon
●Death by water
●What the Thunder said

7. Key Facts
PartsofPoem:-TheBurialofthedead,AGameofChess
Thefiresermon,Deathbywater,WhattheThundersaid
Author:-T.S.Eliot
PublicationYear:-1922
TypeofWork:-LongPoem
Genre:-Modernistpoetry
Language:-English
TimeandPlaceWritten:-LondonintheaftertheFirstWorldWar
Setting:-London
Protagonist:-Tiresias
Lines:-434-line

8. Characters of Poem
★Tiresias
★Madame Sosostris
★Phlebas
★Mr. Eugenides
★Philomela
★A Typist Girl
★Stetson
★Belladonna
★The Rich Lady
Tiresias
●Thechiefprotagonist ofThe
WasteLand.
●AccordingtoEliotisthecentral
figureinTheWasteLandwho
hadspentsevenyearslivingasa
woman.
●Part-III-TheFireSermon
●HistoricallyheisConnectionwith
kingOedipus andHisWaste
Land.

9. Madame Sosostris Mr. Eugenides
●Amerchant fromSmyrna (now
Izmir,inTurkey).
●ThisCharacter’sReferencesawin
Part-III“ThefireofSermon”.
●one-eyed merchant to whom
Madame Sosostrisrefers.
●His pocket is full of
currants.Currants are small,
seedlessanddriedgrape.
●Themerchantinvitesthenarratorto
gowithhimtotheCannonStreet
HotelandtheMetropole,aplacefor
homosexual tryst.
●Madame Sosostrisisagypsywho
tellsfortunesatafair.
●FortuneTeller-ByCard
●Thephrase“hadabadcold”was
meantforMadame Sosostris,and
it'sinanironicway.
●Sheisreadingthefortuneofthe
protagonist,shedoesn'tknow
theprotagonist'srealfortune.

10. Philomela
Phlebas
●APhoenicianmerchantwhoisdescribedlying
deadinthewaterinPart-4"DeathbyWater."
PerhapsthesamedrownedPhoeniciansailor
towhomMadame Sosostrisrefers.
●Indeathhehasforgottenhisworldlycaresas
thecreaturesoftheseahavepickedhisbody
apart.Thenarratoraskshisreadertoconsider
Phlebasandrecallhisorherownmortality.
●A character from
Ovid's
Metamorphoses .
●ShewastheSisterof
Procne, Procne’s
Husband name was
Tereus.
●Shewasrapedby
Tereus,then,after
Philomela Converted
intoNightingle.
●Procne converted
intoSwallow.
●Tereus converted
intoHawk/Eagle.

11. A Typist Girl
The Rich Lady
●Lonely,acreatureofthe
modernworld.
●SheisLoverof"young
man carbuncular," who
sleeps with her
Mechanically.
●Sheisleftaloneagain,
Withhermirroranda
gramophone .
●Character saw in Part-
2 “A Game of Chess”
●She Called as The
Lady of Influence.
●This Character’s
Possibility as Eliot’s
first wife Vivienne.

12. Stetson
Belladonna
●Eliot’s Friend
●HewasSawinPartI
“TheBurialofDead.”
●Believedthathewas
foughtinWorldwarI.
●Part-1BurialofDead
●ShecalledasLadyof
the Rock,Lady of
Situation,Very
Beautifullady
●This Character is
Symbol ofPoison,
Sexual and
Opportunities.

13. ●Title is taken from a book called (From Ritual
to Romance) by Jessie L.Weston.
●It focuses on the Grail legend and the Fisher
king whose infirmity affacts the fertility of the
kingdom itself and the land is doomed to
barrenness.
Title of the poem ‘The Waste land’

14. The poem has five different sections.
1.The Burial of the Dead,
2.A Game of Chess,
3.The Fire sermon,
4.Death by water and
5.What the thunder said.
Plot of the poem ‘The waste land’

15. ●Thetitlerefersburialserviceinthechurch
ofEnglandanddeadfertilitygods
mentionedinFrazer’sbook,TheGolden
Bow.
●Tiresias,theprotagonistofthepoem
representsModernman.
●Springasanawfulseason.
●Mari,theGermanprincess,hasentirely
forgottenreligiousandMoralvalues.
●MetropolitancityLondonorParistoMadam
Sosostris,afortuneteller.
The Burial of the dead

16. A Game of Chess
●Thelongestsectionofthepoem
●Titletakenfromtwoplaysbyearly17th
centuryplaywright,ThomasMiddleton.
●AGameofChessdenotesstageinseduction.
●Finalrepetitionof‘Goodnight’byLilisalsoa
referencetoOpheliaof‘Hamlet’.

17. ●It'stitleischieflyreferencetotheBuddhistFire
sermon.
●EliottriestoshowthemodernWorld’sloveless
relationshipandmeaninglesssex.
●Eliottellsabouttheunrealcity,Londonwhose
streetsandriversgetpollutedafterIndusrialzation.
●SomelinesareborrowedfromTheEnduringMystery
ofPsalmand‘TohisCoyMistress(Truthaboutthe
Death).
●Spencer-TheThamesRiver.
●Augustine’sconfessionaboutthecityCarthage.
●NarratorTiresiasfromtheGreekmythology
●“ITiresias,thoughblind,throbbingbetweentwo
lives,Oldmanwithwrinkledfemalebreast,cansee”
The Fire sermon

18. ●Shortestpartofthepoem.
●Phlebas,thePhoenicianwhohasdiedby
water.
●Significanceofwaterasameansof
Purificationandrebirth.
●Twoassociations,onefromShakespeare's
‘TheTempest’andtheotherfromthe
ancientEgyptianmythoftheGodofFertility.
●“ConsiderPhlebaswhowasoncehandsome
andtallasyou”
Death by Water

19. ●Openingistakenfromthe
CrucifixionofChrist.
●DaDaDa-Datta,Dayadhvam
and Damyata-To Give,
Sympathizeandtocontrol.
●“Hewhowaslivingisnowdead,
Wewhowerelivingarenow
dying/Withalittlepatience”
●“ShantihShantihShantih”
What the thunder said

20. ●I.A.Richardsin‘Theprincipalsofliterary
criticism’,callsit‘Musicofideas’.
●ThestructureofthepoemisthatofSpritualupand
down,throughoutthepoem,wecomebacktothe
samepointbutatdifferentlevels.
●Dante’sDansleRestaurant.
●JeanMichelRabatearguesthat“Thewastelandis
fundamentallyapoemaboutEuropeafterthefirst
worldwar.
Structure of the poem

21. Fragmentation and decay:-
Enacted through the poem’s use of free verse (especially in ‘What the
Thunder Said’) and its references to ‘fragments’ and ‘broken images’.
Sex and relationships:-
Seen in the conversation in the London pub at the end of ‘A Game of
Chess’, the section describing the typist and ‘young man carbuncular’ in ‘The Fire
Sermon’, and the Earl of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth I (the ‘Virgin Queen’),
among others.
Rebirth:-
The Christ images in the poem, along with the many other religious
metaphors, posit rebirth and resurrection as central themes.
Themesof poem:-

23. Resources
●Eliot, TS. “The Waste Land Characters.” GradeSaver, 21 November 2022,
https://www.gradesaver.com/the-waste-land/study-guide/character-list.
●“The Symbolism of The Waste Land Explained –Interesting Literature.” Interesting Literature,
https://interestingliterature.com/2021/06/symbolism-of-the-waste-land-explained/.
●“The Waste Land Character Analysis.” Course Hero, 12 April 2019,
https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Waste-Land/character-analysis/.
●https://www.criticalbuzzz.co.in/critical-analysis-of-the-waste-lands-section-three-the-fire-
sermon/.
●https://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/eliot/section4/.
●Sri, P. S. “Upanishadic Perceptions in T. S. Eliot’s Poetry and Drama.” Rocky Mountain
Review, vol. 62, no. 2, 2008, pp. 34–49. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20479528.
Accessed 14 Dec. 2022.
●Williamson, George. “The Structure of ‘The Waste Land.’” Modern Philology, vol. 47, no. 3,
1950, pp. 191–206. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/434823. Accessed 14 Dec. 2022.