The Wasteland: Quintessential Modernism

Modernism in literature emerged during a time of great upheaval, during World War I. The mass death of millions of young men aided in the loss of innocence to the human race. During this time, people began to look at the world in a different way--less hopeful and idealistic. Writers at this time rejected a “belief in absolute, knowable truth” and replaced the absolute with a “sense of relative, provisional truths” (Cuddy-Keane).

In The Wasteland Eliot provides small vignettes of modern life, of people, individuals who are either caught up in the overwhelming social forces of their world or who are struggling to maintain some kind of individual nature..and often getting beaten back in the process. This element of fragmented scenes without any logical timeline is a major characteristic of modernism. Many modernist writers viewed time not as a progressing line but as a “discontinuous, overlapping, non-chronological” collage of moments in life (Cuddy-Keane).

In fact, Eliot structured the poem to refer back to Classical and Romantic elements, but always in ways that form an echo rather than a connection. We are cut off from, disconnected, from those roots. Thus, many people reading The Wasteland get the feeling that they are not “in” on the joke or that their understanding of what is going on is just out of their reach.



In addition, modernism is often pessimistic and takes a dim view of the culture and the future. Eliot exploits this dramatically and succinctly with his terse, formal glimpses of mundane elements of London life. He uses formal, stylistic words to describe rundown, everyday places and people. Rather than the poetic notion that the city is a teeming, life-giving, bustling collection of humanity he presents it as a wasted land of broken images, with people seeking solace in games and chances and Tarot cards. This description of London as a wasteland is perhaps Eliot’s way of coping with the destruction wrought on London during World War I.

An important characteristic of modernism that shows up throughout The Wasteland is a rejection of a single, omniscient narrator. He does not utilize a single hero or narrative voice, but rather the fragmented and disjointed narratives told from different perspectives. In “The Burial of the Dead” a girl named Marie narrates part of the poem: “My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,/And I was frightened. He said, Marie,/Marie, hold on tight. And down we went” (Eliot 474). In “A Game of Chess,” the narrator, according to Eliot’s notes, is a story told to them by the maid: “When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said--/I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself/...Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart” (Eliot 478). The Wasteland incorporates the point of view of many characters, throwing out the old notion of one all-knowing narrator.

Eliot uses formal, stylistic words to describe rundown, everyday places and people. He does not utilize a single hero or narrative voice, but rather the fragmented and disjointed narratives told from different perspectives. He is not so concerned with what it all means, but with the way it actually is. Eliot’s The Wasteland introduces and utilizes many characteristics of Modernist literature, including the use of multiple narrators to depict moments in everyday life. The Wasteland is clearly one of the first, and most influential pieces of literature in the Modernist period.


Works Cited:
Cuddy-Keane, Melba. "Modernism: Some Characteristics." ENGB02Y: English Literature: Historical Survey. http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~mcuddy/ENGB02Y/Modernism.html

Eliot, T.S. "The Wasteland." The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. WW Norton & Company: New York. 2003. 474-487.

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The Wasteland: http://www.thoughtaudio.com/titlelist/TA0032-Wasteland/0032-WASTELAND.jpg