This document provides an analysis of symbols in T.S. Eliot's modernist poem "The Waste Land". It discusses various symbols like the Fisher King, river, water, religion, human characters, city, season, and Buddhism. The Fisher King represents humanity's loss of fertility and meaning in the modern world. Water symbolizes death, rebirth, and cleansing. The dry riverbed in the poem symbolizes drought and death. Religious symbols from Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism are present. Characters like the Fisher King and Tiresias symbolize lifeless modern individuals. The analysis explores these and other symbols in the complex modernist work.

1. Name: Keraliya Kajal
Roll no: 18
Paper-9 : Modernist Literature
M.A: Sem-3
Enrolment no: 2069108420180030
Year: 2017-19
E-mail id: Www.kajalk1@gmail.com
Submitted to:
S.B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University
Symbolism in “waste land”

2. Symbolism
 Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify
ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic
meanings that are different from their literal
sense. Some time an action, an event or a
word spoken by someone may have a
symbolic value.
 Symbolism is a figure of speech that is used
when an author wants to create a certain
mood or emotion in a work of literature.

3. Symbolism can be
Symbolism
can be..
An object
Picture
Written
word
Sound
Language

4. Symbols in the Waste land
The Fisher king River Buddhism
Water City Season
Religion Human characters Thunder
Drought Landscape

5.  From ‘Rituals to Romance’
 The book is seen for the
connection between ancient
fertility rights and Christianity. It
includes the evolution of the
Fisher King into early
representation of Jesus Christ as
a fish. If we see it traditionally we
find that the importance of death
of the Fisher King brought
Unhappiness and famine.
 Fisher King as symbolic of
humanity robbed of its sexuality
potency in the modern world and
connected to the
meaninglessness of urban
existence.
The Fisher King

6.  I.A Richards and Cleanth Brooks believe the poem
to be religious. The Christian myth of King Fisher
shows that regeneration is possible through
penance and suffering.
 Eliot presents alternative religious possibility,
including Hindu chants, Buddhist speeches and
pagan ceremonies. Such as the echoes of the Lord’s
Prayer in “The Hollow Men” and the retelling of the
story of the wise men in “Journey of the Magi”
(1927).
 The poem ends with...
“Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata,
Shantih shantih shantih”
Vedic recitation ends with Universal theme of
nonviolence and peace
Religion

7. Water
Symbolism of water
Death Resurrection Birth

8. Water cleanses
Water brings
relief
Water provide
solace

9.  Although water has regeneration possibility
of restoring life and fertility. It can also lead to
drawing and death, as in the case of Phlebas
the sailor from the Waste Land. Traditionally
water can be baptism, Christianity and the
figure of Jesus Christ.
“Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves waited for rain,
While the black clouds gathered far distant, over Himavant

10. “Here is no water, but only rock
Rock and no water and sandy road
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain”
Drought
Death

11.  The characters in the poem are not the only
devices used to invoke symbolism. The tarot card
characters. Phoenician sailor. The hanged man,
the repeated biblical references all serve to touch
upon symbolic value and also function as
objective correlatives.
 The Sibyl, Ezra Pound, Madame Sosostris...
 Males and Females of the Waste Land have no
virtues. They are living but seems dead. King
Fisher, Tiresias, Girls singing in boat, Prostitutes
are some such human character.
Human Characters

12.  Cities are destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed
mirroring the cyclical downfall of cultures.
City

13.  Eliot opens “The Fire Sermon”
by painting a pretty dismal
picture of London’s Thames
Rives. In line 176, he quates the
great English poet Edmund
Spenser, a man who once wrote
love songs about how beautiful
and inspiring the “Sweet
Thames” was. In modern days,
though, Eliot only finds “empty
bottles, sandwich papers/ Silk
handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes,
cigarette ends.”
 The river symbolizes the flow
continuity of life.
River

14.  Summer refers to joy, winter refers to
grimness and death. It refers to bareness.
Season

15.  ‘The fire Sermon’ is the title taken from a
sermon given by Buddha. Buddha encourages
his followers to give up earthly passion.
Buddha preached non vioelence and wanted
followers to rise spiritually. He symbolizes
universal Non violence and peace.
Buddhism