Europe Fragmented

   While every viewpoint concerning the meaning or underlying references in “The Wasteland” can be easily argued, I saw that the fragmentation of European culture as an important theme in T.S. Eliot’s allusive and confusing poem.

   The poem opens with a reference to Bloody April (April, 1917) stating that, “April is the cruellest month…” (1318, ln 1) While altering the first few lines of Canterbury Tales in the above mentioned passage, Eliot is directly subverting expectations of the norm of April and spring as a time of death rather than life. In the same stanza, Eliot brings up the idea of “Winter kept us warm,..” (1318, ln 5), proposing the notion that the winters of war kept the soldiers warm, with the underlying meaning being the soldiers were kept alive. This gives an overall idea into the unsettling concept of an incredibly destabilized and depressing mindset of all of Europe and Western culture. In the second stanza, Eliot states that, “A heap of broken images, where the sun beats…” and in that, he refers to London, and Europe itself, as fragmented and broken. This notion reflects the form in which “The Wasteland”: fragmented and very much broken. Later on in the first section, Eliot writes, “That corpse you planted last year in your garden/Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?” (1319, ln 71) This speaks to the perpetual decay across both London and Europe. The war planted death and unrest, and Eliot is just waiting for that to bring more and more decay onto Europe.

  All throughout the poem, Eliot continues a metaphor focusing on water, or lack thereof. Lines 19-24 in section one first mention, “no sound of water” and lines 331-359 in section 5 continue the them of a lack of water in stating, “What are mountains of rock without water, If there were water we should stop and drink.” Lines 345-357 relate to the constant imagery with a form that reminds the reader of actual water flowing. “The Wasteland” itself lacks water and in the poem, water promises and is a metaphor for rebirth. Europe, after WWI, is looking for rebirth. Looking for a rebirth of society, of culture, of love, of history, of religion and faith. But at the same time, water can bring about death. The fourth section talks about the Phoenician sailor and the decree that he should fear “death by water.” When there isn’t rain or water in a location for a period of time, things start cracking and decaying and dying. To Eliot, this was Europe itself. But at the end of “The Wasteland,” rain comes and suggests the cleansing of sins and misdeeds, bringing about the hope of a new start and a new future to Europe and the people who have been affected by the Great War.