III. THE FIRE SERMON<\/p>\n
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
\nDragging its slimy belly on the bank
\nWhile I was fishing in the dull canal
\nOn a winter evening round behind the gashouse
\nMusing upon the king my brother\u2019s wreck
\nAnd on the king my father\u2019s death before him.
\nWhite bodies naked on the low damp ground
\nAnd bones cast in a little low dry garret,
\nRattled by the rat\u2019s foot only, year to year.
\nBut at my back from time to time I hear
\nThe sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
\nSweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
\nO the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
\nAnd on her daughter
\nThey wash their feet in soda water
\nEt O ces voix d\u2019enfants, chantant dans la coupole!<\/p>\n
Twit twit twit
\nJug jug jug jug jug jug
\nSo rudely forc’d.
\nTereu<\/p>\n
~~~<\/p>\n
My chosen passage begins with the image of a rat, immediately establishing one of the poem\u2019s recurring symbols. The rat is vile, degenerative and infamous for its ability to transmit disease and lurk in dirty places. This image is consolidated in the onomatopoeic \u201cslimy belly\u201d, which the rat \u201cdrags\u201d along the bank \u2014 the word \u201cslimy\u201d evoking disgust, just as the rat\u2019s slinking draws attention to its physical and figurative lowness.<\/p>\n
The passage then shifts to describe the speaker as fishing in the \u201cdull canal\u201d \u2014 the assonance suggesting a lifelessness contradictory to the normal association of water as life-giving. The word \u201cfish\u201d introduces the allusion to \u201cThe Fisher King\u201d, an Arthurian legend that refers to a \u201cKing\u201d who, after being injured becomes impotent and turns the world barren. In order to restore the land to fertility, the knight Parsifal must endure various trials, reach the Perilous Chapel, and answer questions relating to the Holy Grail. While Parsifal\u2019s quest speaks of hope, Eliot\u2019s wasteland appears fixed in The Fisher King\u2019s state of endless futility.<\/p>\n
This idea of a cold, sterile world is continued in the following line beginning \u2018on a winter evening\u2019. Winter is the darkest season where growth is inhibited. Further, it is \u201cevening\u201d, a liminal time belonging to neither day nor night. Light lingers but the onset of darkness is imminent, thus invoking a portrait of a speaker, and perhaps a civilisation, on the brink of its demise.<\/p>\n
The following line, beginning with \u201cmusing\u201d, draws the reader into the internal thoughts of the speaker. Here the speaker is pondering \u2018the king my brother\u2019s wreck \/ And on the king my father\u2019s death before him,\u2019 \u2014 an allusion to Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cThe Tempest\u201d in which Prospero schemes revenge on his brother who cast him off to an island and usurped his role as Duke of Milan. This allusion is striking for two reasons. Firstly, the repetition in \u201cking my brother\u201d and \u201cking my father\u201d blurs familial distinctions thus confusing the nature of traditional, reliable institutional structures. Secondly, Eliot alludes to a story that hinges upon revenge \u2013 a theme reinforced through other allusions I will discuss later in my analysis.<\/p>\n
Sex is another point of interest for Eliot in this excerpt. The line, \u2018but at my back from time to time I hear\u2019, is a reference to Marvell\u2019s, To His Coy Mistress \u2014 <\/em>its alliteration and repetition suggesting time creeps up from behind, ticking away to its ultimate conclusion. In Marvell\u2019s poem his speaker acknowledges that if he had an infinite amount of time, he would woo the woman to whom he speaks. However, he argues that given the imminent ageing of their bodies, the woman should forego her coyness and sleep with him. Thus Eliot twists the meaning of the allusion in a manner that demeans traditional values of a woman\u2019s chastity and a man\u2019s chivalry.<\/p>\n The concept of sex equalling connectivity is similarly challenged in the following lines where Eliot introduces \u201cMrs Porter\u201d, a character in an Australian drinking song sung by soldiers stationed in Egypt prior to being sent to the front. \u201cMrs Porter\u201d, and her similarly mentioned daughter are prostitutes. The rhyming of \u201cPorter\u201d, \u201cdaughter\u201d and \u201cwater\u201d encourages a rhythmic meter of a soldier\u2019s merry song \u2014 but in reality alludes to young men doomed to die, and mother and daughter prostitutes trying to scrub themselves clean. This allusion is used in conjunction with another \u2014 John Day\u2019s, Parliament of Bees <\/em>which recounts the Greek myth of Diana and Actaeon and, like The Tempest<\/em>, is centred around revenge. In the poem, Actaeon comes upon Diana, the goddess of war, bathing unclothed. Noticing him, Diana turns him into a stag so that he may never speak of what he saw. Thus, in his allusion, Eliot reduces Diana to a common sex object \u2014 the belittling of such a revered figure furthered through the mocking tone evoked by the rhyming couplets.<\/p>\n In the final stanza, Eliot creates a sense of uneasiness by abandoning a more traditional verse for repetitive stressed syllables \u2014\u201cTwit\u201d and \u201cJug\u201d and iambs \u2014 \u2018So rudely forc\u2019d \/ Tereu\u2019. Here he references Philomena, who, in Greek mythology, was raped by her brother-in-law Tereus, who later silenced her by slicing her tongue. Unable to speak, the Gods took pity on Philomena making her nightingale \u2014 but while Eliot\u2019s reference could be seen as redemptive, in nature, it is the male, not the female nightingale that sings.<\/p>\n In The Waste Land,<\/em> Eliot interweaves a variety of collective moods and personal experiences in order to cultivate a tone that is rooted in sterility and meaninglessness. Historically, Eliot uses a plethora of imagery \u2013 the scurrying rat which evokes images of soldiers in the trenches, the mention of bones and bodies \u2013 to capture a nihilistic post-WWI zeitgeist.<\/p>\n The poem is representative of a time where the war was over but \u2018revenge\u2019 brought only disenchantment. Thematically Eliot explores these concepts through his allusions to Shakespeare and John Day. In a world that has been irreversibly changed through suffering, the notion of \u201crevenge\u201d appears empty and any true solace unachievable.<\/p>\n A new era of industrialisation forced an end to romanticism and a confusion as to how society might reconfigure itself in this state of \u201cin-between”. Urbanisation brought a lack of traditional guidance \u2014 in family, Elizabethan conventions and religion that failed to ease the deep post-war grief. Eliot\u2019s experimentation with poetic construction can then perhaps be seen as a reflection of this uncertainty, as he shifts from traditional verse to jarring stressed syllables and iambs.<\/p>\n In light of this suffering, Eliot reveals how civilians sought meaning through connection, ultimately turning to sex (\u201cMrs Porter\u201d, \u201cHis Coy Mistress\u201d). <\/em>However, through these allusions Eliot degrades the value of sex examining how individuals\u2019 attempts to cultivate connectedness were only met with disappointment.<\/p>\n Finally, we can consider Eliot\u2019s own disenchantment as a soon-to-be middle-aged poet grappling with a desire to write with authenticity. Hospitalised for depression in 1921, he perhaps looked to the authenticity of others, littering the poem with allusions. Through these constructs he explored the lingering repercussions of war, the torment of an inability to find meaning in intimacy, and a loss of hope for the future of society as a whole.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" III. THE FIRE SERMON A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank While I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter evening round behind the gashouse Musing upon the king my brother\u2019s wreck And on the king my father\u2019s death before him. White bodies naked on the … <\/p>\n