Literature Assignment

T.S Eliot was born as an American citizen however he decided to become a great British poet in those years. He experienced what a post war period was and the decline of human beings as a community. “The Waste Land” is one of his well-known pieces of work in which consist in 5 different stories, being told by many different narrators. What I think the author tried to develop was the idea of many people being affected by the inclemency of war and how everybody felt: lack of hope and regrets of what had happened. According to Wikipedia.com “The Waste Land” takes into consideration 5 traditional elements: earth, air, fire, water and aether. The first element, EARTH has a direct relationship with the burial and understanding the importance of land as the place where people exist. Then, AIR is represented by the many voices or narrators that this work has, implying that there is a developed intellectual mind behind the creation of this work. FIRE is represented by the passion the author put in this work, understanding that the only way of writing all those complex feelings is by feeling them yourself. WATER represented by the use of images of sea and a voyage. And finally, AETHER as the material that fills all the region of universe, this means that even though you talk about a waste land there must be something in that place besides nothingness.

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Marjorie

I agree with you when you state that in this poem the author is trying to depict the consequences of the war in people's lives. In this sense, your post directly deals with my impressions about this literary work. Then, if you check my last post you will realize that we share this main idea of how harsh war is and how it causes people's suffering. However, I think you could have developed this specific topic in depth; you just mention it and skip the main implications and reasons of it, thus, you continue with another view of the poem referred to Wikipedia.
In essence, I would point out that in this poem the author is depicting the MISERIES OF MODERN CULTURE and how human beings’ unconsciousness has cheapened the earth and nature’s worth. Therefore, I would develop in depth the idea of having all the natural resources and at the same time wasting them or utilizing them wrongly because of human beings’ selfishness.

Good Job!