- #The waste land myth and symbols in the great gatsby how to#
- #The waste land myth and symbols in the great gatsby full#
#The waste land myth and symbols in the great gatsby full#
Fraser: “The Christian interpretation of this traditional myth is the highest one: the sacrificed king is Christ, as God Incarnate, and the barren land which has to be reclaimed to fertility is the human heart, full of selfishness and lust, choked with the tares of sin.” The relevance of this to the Christian-scheme is discussed by Miss Weston it is summarized as follows by C. Only when the Fisher King is healed through the appearing of a pure fool who asks the proper questions can the land again become fertile. Thebes was due to the crimes of Oedipus against the procreative cycles.
The Fisher King is sick, having been maimed (usually a sexual wound) and, because he is sick, his lands are waste and barren, just as in “Oedipus Rex” (as Tiresias knew) the plague upon The Grail legends, according to Miss Weston, are derived from those vegetative rites, and it is the Fisher King on whom the health and fertility of the land and people are dependent in these legends. This ritual also came to be associated with the religious initiation patterns to which primitive people seem to give much more open recognition than do modern civilized societies. In the vegetative rites discussed in both, the figure of the Year-god was thrown into the waters of the Nile (or some other body of water) and later “fished out” (resurrected), symbolizing the rebirth of the life principle in the spring. One valuable function of the notes, nevertheless, has been to indicate some of the works that most importantly influenced the writing of the poem among others (as we mentioned) Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” and Weston’s “From Ritual to Romance,” books relevant to much of the basic symbolism used. The notes have been the focus of much critical effort and comment, and Eliot has since remarked that he regrets having appended them. When the poem was first printed in book form two months after its initial publication in the “Criterion” of October, 1922, the printer needed additional copy to fill a signature since Eliot had no other poems ready at that time, he submitted the explanatory notes on “The Waste Land” which now fill about five pages in the “Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950″. GradeSaver, 26 October 2007 Web.Symbols In The Waste Land Essay, Research Paper
#The waste land myth and symbols in the great gatsby how to#
Next Section Glossary Previous Section The Waste Land Summary Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Chazelle, Damien. PhlebasĪ Phoenician merchant who is described lying dead in the water in "Death by Water." Perhaps the same drowned Phoenician sailor to whom Madame Sosostris refers. Probably the one-eyed merchant to whom Madame Sosostris refers. EugenidesĪ merchant from Smyrna (now Izmir, in Turkey). She is left alone again, accompanied by just her mirror and a gramophone. She is visited by a "young man carbuncular," who sleeps with her. She was raped by Tereus, then, after taking her vengeance with her sister, morphed into a nightingale. PhilomelaĪ character from Ovid's Metamorphoses. She might allude to Eliot's wife Vivienne. Never referred to by name, she sits in the resplendent drawing room of "A Game of Chess." She seems to be surrounded by luxury, but unable to appreciate or enjoy it. Perhaps the Punic War or World War I, or both, or neither. She suffers from a bad cold, but is nonetheless "known to be the wisest woman in Europe, / With a wicked pack of cards." StetsonĪ friend of the Narrator's, who fought in the war with him. Madame SosostrisĪ famous clairvoyant referred to in Aldous Huxley's novel Crome Yellow and borrowed by Eliot for the Tarot card episode. When he seems to reflect Eliot, the extent to which his ruminations are autobiographical is ambiguous. In "The Fire Sermon" he is at one point the Fisher King of the Grail legend, at another the blind prophet Tiresias. At times the Narrator seems to be Eliot himself at other times he stands in for all humanity. The most difficult to describe of the poem's characters, he assumes many different shapes and guises.
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