Death by Water

In the third section the possibility of purification of the soul lay in the release from the burning flame of lust
through asceticism of Lord Buddha and St. Augustine. This section also describes the possibility of
becoming free from the fire of passion, not by self-discipline, but by water which washes away all the stains
of the body as well as of the soul. The death by water, 'with its suggestion of ineffable peace,' is another
form of purgation. Here the Phoenician sailor is deprived of his lust for profit and loss and sensuous
pleasures of the body by the currents which pick the lust from the bones of not only Phlebas but of all
people, because he is all of us, the last line insists, making the identification with us. He reverses as the
rhythm of his life as he enters the vortex.

What the Thunder Said

In this section the protagonist turns from the water that drowns in the last section to the water that saves. He
attempts to achieve peace by coming under the shadow of religion, but even religion falls him as the
commands of the thunder are violated in the Waste Land. The quest for salvation and inner peace have been
expressed through three objective correlative, the Journey to Emmaus, the approach of the Chapel Perilous
and the present decay of Eastern Europe. These three themes are but illustrations of one single theme; the
falling down of the temporal world, and the promise of a revivification through the spirit. This section of
The Waste Land marks a turning point in Eliot's work since the satire of the world is accompanied for the
first time by a message of hope; the poem is no longer ironical, destructive, and negative. The relation
between the scene of universal desolation, the symbol of the cock, the sensual symbol of the hair, the notion
of sympathy and the religious exhortation at the end of the poem is made clearer by this remark.

The poem shows the way of release from the spiritual death and finds its solution in the hoary wisdom of
India. The opening lines of the poem prepare for the Christ's crucifixion, then we see the agony of parched
throated sensibility in the 'mountains of rock without water,' the nightmare reversals in the vision of the
Chapel Perilous, and the Imagery of the thunder's message.