T. S. Elliot (1888-1965) _The waste Land

Born in Saint Louis, Missouri, Elliot was form the most respected family in America and England. His family and himself achievements will be forever benefited to us all. I did not understand all his poems, but the few I understood were very very good and well thought. In The waste Land, he talked about regret, waste, the sadness of life, the struggle and the end of human beings. It is a deep poem, that when understood, put a lot of things in words that we all already think of and know of. It is amazing how he talked about natural stuff like rocks, water, mountains…like they had felling or regret…
A game of Chess here Elliot is relating one of his friend who is tired or sick, who had some regrets about how her life was going. “You know nothing? Do you remember nothing? …Those pearl that were his eyes…Are you alive or not? Is there nothing in your head?” (P2429) here I think Elliot friend was stressing over the turn her life took, trying to convince him to see her regrets, asking him if he forgot the facts that she was trying to tell him about. “It’s so elegant, so intelligent, what should I do now? What should I do? I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street with my hair down. What shall I do tomorrow? What shall we ever do?” (P2430) here the woman had another depression, it like she was supposed to do something but did not have the time to solve at the due date. She was asking herself a lot of questions, like she wasted her life and that time was running out on her; she was trying to satisfy a husband I think who was coming back from the army…Could Elliot be relating about Virginia Woolf?
“What the thunder said” this part of the waste land was very sad for me to read, especially since I just lost my father. Elliot wrote: “After the torchlight red on sweaty faces, after the frosty silence in the gardens, after the agony in stony places, the shouting and crying, prison and palace and reverberation, he who was living is now dead, we who were living is now dying, with little patience, here is no water but only rock, rock and no water and the sandy road.” (P2435) Here Elliot was telling us about the sadness of life because of the fact that we come to life for a trip; have the prettiest houses, gardens, struggle to survive, fight each other, cry and shout for right or wrong things but at the end we all going to dye. He was saying others are dead and some are dying with little patience. Remember all the fight of our ancestors did for us, the French Revolution, struggle in England, world war one and two…Elliot is urging us to do the right thing in order to have a good finality, in order not to waste our time in this land. We all must return the favor we were giving by our ancestors and parents…
I cannot say no more because I might go off base, but this is a deep, truthful poem that must be read and understood by all. Oh I forgot!!! It’s amazing how many languages Elliot spoke, he was an international…I am so glad I took this class…