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MonkeyNotes-The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
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Part IV is the shortest of the five parts. "Death by Water"
describes how the body of the drowned Phoenician merchant
sailor slowly decomposes after he is drowned at sea. He seems to
have been concerned only with material prosperity in life - "the
profit and the loss." At the end of his life, he has apparently
achieved nothing. This brief lyric suggests ironically that water
can be a destructive force as it brings death by drowning. This
suggestion is extended into the next part of the poem where the
absence of the life-giving force of water causes man to suffer
both physical dehydration and a spiritual drought.
The final part, " What the thunder Said," talks of the decay and
emptiness of modern life, which is utterly lacking in spirituality.
Part V begins with a graphic account of ChristÂ’s betrayal, trial
and death on the cross, his journey to Emmaus after his
resurrection and his redemption of the fallen woman, Mary
Magdalene. The character of Moses, the water diviner and Old
Testament prophet is presented wandering across the realms of a
bleak and barren modern waste land. There is also a description
of the Quester KnightÂ’s grueling journey to the empty Chapel
(where once the Holy Grail was secretly enshrined). In the
closing lines of the poem, the arrival of the redemptive rain is
heard in the thunderous voice of Prajapati, the supreme God of
the Hindu pantheon. His words of advice to his disciples the
Devas (gods), the Asuras (Evil spirits) and the Manusyas
(humans) are to give, sympathize and control (respectively). In
the end, Eliot proclaims a message of : "Shantih! Shantih,
Shantih!" i.e. the divine peace that surpasses all human
understanding.
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