Use of myth and imagery 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, he has used mythical method and imagery to show the relation of the present with the past. The essence of mythical method lies in establishing a parallel between the ancient world and the modern world. This parallel helps the poet to express his meaning and comment indirectly.

          In “The Waste Land”, Eliot has drawn the myths and imagery from two sources. One is Sir James Frazer’s book ‘The Golden Bough’ and the other is Miss Jessie Weston’s ‘From Ritual to Romance’. He has taken his mythical matter from Frazer’s cultivation rituals and Miss Weston’s Fisher king and Grail myths.

          The Holy Grail legend is associated with adventures of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. In “The Waste Land”, Eliot has connected the story of the Holy Grail with the Fisher King. He was a very sensual and sinful king. So he became sick and his kingdom suffered from drought and famine. According to another legend, the soldiers of the king raped the nuns attached to the Chapel of the Holy Grail. As a result of the sin, his kingdom suffered from famine.

          Howevere, Sir Persifal, the virtuous knight visited the Chapel and thereby the curse on king fisher and on his land was removed. ‘The waste Land’ of the Fisher king stands for the waste land of the modern world. The sick king stands for the sick humanity. The sickness of Fisher King was due to sexual orgies. In the same way, the sickness of modern men is due to their sexual perversities. Sex has been degraded to an animal passion and not as a means of the expression of true love.

          In The Waste Land, it has a reference to the land of Emmaus mentioned in the old Bible. The land became barren and dry on account of the idolatory of the dwellers. Once upon a prophet told them to worship God and to give up idolatory, so that the waste land may become fertile. There are references to the Biblical waste land in the words like the rock, the dread tree the dry grass mentioned in the famous poem “The Waste Land”.

          Another legendary figure in the poem is Tiresias, the protagonist of the poem. Once, Tiresias saw two serpents mating together. He was cursed by them and transformed into a woman. After seven years he saw the same scene and was cursed and transformed into a man. So he has the experience of life both as a man and as a woman. Later on, he was questioned by Zeus and his wife Hera, as to whether man is more passionate than a woman. He declared that woman was more passionate then man. For this Hera cursed him with blindness and Zeus granted him prophetic power for compensation.

          By means of his prophetic power, Tiresias declared that the king Oedipus was responsible for the epidemic and famine of his country Thebes. Thus Tiresias is a link between the Waste Land of king Oedipus and the Waste Land of modern civilization. He is an enlightened commentator on the modern Waste Land. He is an embodiment of human conscience and of higher humanity which deplores the loss of faith and moral values in the modern world.

          Thus in The waste Land, Eliot handles myth very successfully to connect the modern waste-land with other waste-land of ancient times. The idea behind this pattern is that it is possible to restore the waste land to fertility through the remedies followed in the past, namely repentance and penance.