Comment on the fusion of the past and present/ moral decay of modern world in The Waste Land

T.S. Eliot was the most famous poet of the modern age. His “The Waste Land” is a very important land-mark in the 20^th century literature. Here in this poem, the poet has shown the fusion of present and the past. T.S. Eliot here also says about the moral decay of modern world. “The Waste Land” is full of different things and it places side by side and rearranges the most radically different materials, collected from widely different places, times and cultures.

The treatment of sex in the poem “The Waste Land” is very important to portray the moral decay of modern world. In this poem Eliot has given some examples about the treatment of sex. We know that sex is a vital aspect of our life. It is an expression of love. But nowadays sex has been treated as the animal pleasure. It has become a source of moral decay and destruction. For example, in the poem we find the picture of three Thames daughters who live on being the objects of sexual enjoyment in exchange of money. The mechanical sex relationship is also found in the love affair of the typist girl and her boy friend. The poet has observed that the whole Europe is destroying by the fire of sex. By the words of T.S. Augustine, he says that:

“To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning.

          In the past, the source of inspiration and achievement was faith. People really believed in Christian values. Elderly people were respected. But today the values have changed. Money is the god of the modern people. Older people are hated. Christians go to the church as a matter of routine. The result is that Christian faith and compassion are no longer regarded as objects of life.

         

In earlier times, the human relationship was very intimate. There was the joint family system. But nowadays single family has become the style. So the human relationship is breaking down. Human sympathy and brotherhood are almost lost. In this respect the poet says:

“We think of the key, each in this prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison”.

          The modern people are not satisfied with their getting. The more they have, the more they want. Being dissatisfied with their getting, they become frustrated. For example, Lil is a woman of thirty-one. She is frustrated because she fails to hold her husband who wants more and more sex. In the same way, the Lady of situation is the fashionable society woman. She feels bored with her own life. Her lover also suffers from mental dissatisfaction. He says:

“I think we are in a rat’s alley

Where the dead men lost their bones”.

An important cause of disintegration of modern civilization is the enormous power wielded by politicians. They have the power to make war against other countries, without consulting their own people. By their own action, they can bring untold miseries to their countrymen. Millions of people were affected by war directly and indirectly. They had to wander as refugees in search of food and shelter. Their lamentation filled both plains and hills.

          To conclude we may say that Eliot vividly portrays in the poem the picture of disorder and decay of European society after the First World War. Eliot presents the present chaos and relation to similar periods in the history of man and brings about relationship between the past and the present through the employment of the mythical method.