English
Anna Fedorova
The motif of decay in "The Waste Land" by
T. S. Eliot
Seminar paper
Universität Hannover, Englisches Seminar
SS 2004
HS: High Modernism
Hausarbeit
The motif of decay in The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
Anna Fedorova
2
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
2. THEMES WHICH CONTRIBUTE TO THE MOTIF OF DECAY.....................................4
2.1. THE THEME OF DEATH IN THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD .......................................................................... 4
2.2 THE THEME OF MEMORY IN THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD........................................................................ 6
2.3. THE THEME OF SEXUALITY IN THE GAME OF CHESS ........................................................................... 6
2.4 ”THE THEMATIC REFRAIN” IN THE FIRE SERMON AND DEATH BY WATER ............................................ 8
THE THEME OF APOCALYPSE IN THE WHAT THE THUNDER SAID ................................................................ 9
3. TECHNIQUES WHICH CONTRIBUTE TO THE EXPRESSION OF THE MOTIF OF
DECAY..........................................................................................................................................10
3.1. THE CREATION OF IMAGES ................................................................................................................ 10
3.2. THE USE OF IRONY AND PARADOX .................................................................................................... 11
3.3 THE ROLE OF THE SPEAKER IN THE POEM .......................................................................................... 13
4. TO THE ISSUE OF THE INTENTIONAL FALLACY.........................................................15
5. CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................15
WORKS CITED...........................................................................................................................17
3
1. Introduction
In the epigraph to The Waste Land the Sybil, a woman with prophetic abilities, looks at the future
and proclaims that the only thing she wants is to die. Her pessimism about the future is the first
indication of the idea which develops into the central theme of the poem: the decay of the human
civilization.
In this paper I am going to concentrate on interpretation of the motif of decay and its meanings in
The Waste Land. The poem was published in 1922 and appears to be a typical literary example of
Modern poetry. That’s why I decided to adopt the New Critical perspective for my paper. New
Criticism is the literary theory which dominated in the early 20th century and was used especially
for interpretations of poetry. In this paper I will refer to the main statements of the New Critical
theory described by I. A. Richards.1
The New Criticical approach states that every literary text is autonomous. Historical context and
biography of the author are irrelevant for the understanding of the meaning of the text. The
meaning of the text has to be found in the text itself. Hence, the New Critical approach is based
on the close reading of the text.
An important assumption of the New Critical perspective is the belief that “every meaning is
ambiguous”2 and has more than one possible interpretation. In order to understand the meaning
of the poetic text, the reader has to resolve the ambiguities.
The New Critical theory argues that every literary text is complex. The text has a central theme,
which unifies all other themes. Other themes should contribute to the central theme.
In my paper I see the motif of decay as the central theme of the poem and want to show in what
way other themes are related to each other to form the main idea of the poem - the breakup of the
civilization.
Following the methods of the New Criticism, I will restrict myself to interpretation of the images
which appear in the text, without paying attention to the historical, religious, social background of
the poem.
Since the New Critical approach implies the close reading of the text, I am going to work, for the
most part, with the text itself (rather than with secondary sources) and go through the parts of the
poem, pursuing three following issues:
1
2
Richards, I.A. Principles of Literary Criticism. New York: Brace and World, 1988
Empson. Seven Types of Ambiguity. London: Chatto and Windus, 1970, p. 1