The Waste Land | Part 1, The Burial of the Dead |

Summary
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Summary
The poem begins with a striking image of spring with
the main speaker noting how, paradoxically, life grows
out of death; that is, how all the decay from fall and
then winter's frost is the breeding ground for new life.
The perspective shifts from this discussion of the
changing of the seasons to a scene near the
Starnbergersee, a lake near Munich, Germany, and an
instance where the speaker and other unspecified people
were "surprised" by the arrival of summer. The speaker
enjoys coffee and conversation with others. Then what
appears to be a new speaker named Marie describes a
childhood memory of sledding in the mountains; she
was afraid but also felt free.
The second stanza shifts back to a discussion of plant
life, asking about the "roots that clutch" and the
"branches [that] grow" in this dry environment. In
answer, the main speaker notes how, in this unspecified
but dry and decrepit place, the sun is unmerciful, "the
dead tree gives no shelter." There is, the speaker adds,
no water. However, the speaker promises to show
"something different" from the two kinds of shadows
seen throughout the course of the day: the one in the
morning, and the one at night. The speaker adds, "I will
show you fear in a handful of dust." The perspective
changes once again with dialogue in which someone
describes being given hyacinths: "They called me the
hyacinth girl." Another voice, that of someone
accompanying the "hyacinth girl," notes that upon
returning from the "Hyacinth garden, / Your arms full,
and your hair wet, I could not / Speak, and my eyes
failed."
The third stanza introduces yet another character in the
person of "Madame Sosostris," a clairvoyant with a
cold. She has a pack of tarot cards, and the main speaker
goes on to describe them, mentioning a "drowned
Phoenician Sailor," "Belladonna," and so forth. One
card missing is "The Hanged Man." The speaker says
that he sees people walking in a circle.
The fourth and final stanza describes "the brown fog of
a winter dawn" in London, and a long procession of
people walking over London Bridge. The people have
their eyes trained on the ground. The speaker asks
someone named Stetson a series of strange questions
about a "corpse ... planted last year" in the garden. "Has
it begun to sprout?" the speaker asks. "Will it bloom this
year?" And then the speaker warns him to keep the dog
away, because he'll dig it up.

Analysis
The Waste Land is a notoriously difficult poem. The confusion of speakers and voices is difficult to dissect.
But if this isn't enough, the reader must consider the giddy collage of sounds and songs that repeat, jag on
the ear, jar against each other, and leave the reader as confused as a neurasthenic. Despite all this, there is a
method. Of course, help is required—from Eliothimself and his famous footnotes; from scholars—but it's
clear that Eliot wanted his readers to listen as much as look.
The "cruel" dullness of the atmosphere, the lifelessness of this wasteland, is made tangibly apparent and
also aurally apparent, through sounds. For an example, consider the prosaic opening of the first stanza and
its repetition of participles, or verbs ending with "-ing": "April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out
of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain. " (lines 1–4). The
plodding rhythm is appropriate for a section entitled
"The Burial of the Dead." There's a distinct apathy here,
the sense that the speaker is just mailing it in— -ing, -
ing, -ing, -ing, -ing. Whatever. Spring is cruel, the roots
are dull—and I don't really care. This is dead language,
in need of revival.
Particularly through the vivid image of how April
breeds "Lilacs out of the dead land" and stirs "Dull roots
with spring rain" (lines 2 and 4), the first stanza of Part
1 evokes one of the key symbols by noting how all life
is formed out of death. Here, the cruelty referenced in
the first line is made clear: life consists of constant
change, flux; death and decay are part of that cycle. But
though the reader might associate the sun and water
with growth, since they are the ingredients for the new
plant life described in the first few lines, they are also
agents of pain, decay, dehydration, and ultimately death.
This dry, sun-beaten landscape is, of course, the
symbolic wasteland of the poem's title, but it also
allegorically references the dead or dying lives of
modern society, according to the speakers. True, life
involves a cycle—the death of winter and the
rejuvenation of spring. But, in this place—where trees
give "no shelter"—there seems to be no imminent
source of relief: "spring," or those revivifying forces, do
not appear to be available.
This theme develops further when the perspective shifts to the description of the "hyacinth garden"—surely
some relief to the aridity? Not so. The speaker reveals that they have gone dumb and blind. This might be a
reference to the experience of paralysis, possibly of a sexual nature, after encountering the hyacinth girl. If
the girl herself is to blame, she could be viewed as a sort of femme fatale figure, and there are numerous
other dangerous or deadly women referenced throughout the poem. Another interpretation is that the
impairment of speech and sight is the result of the persona encountering the dangerous plant life of the
wasteland. Either way, the passage is a key example of how the wasteland functions as a symbolic
landscape, where obstacles in the environment allegorically represent temptations along the path of life.

In one of many instances in the poem where the speaker wishes to offer a "vision" that might get these
wasteland people out of their predicament, Madame Sosostris makes her appearance. Her "wicked pack of
[tarot] cards" (line 46) foreshadows many of the scenes and themes to come in the later sections. Indeed,
Part 1 gives the first set of a series of Sibyl-like figures—injured or ailing women who seem to have some
insight or foresight about events to come. Appropriately, one of the tarot cards features "Belladonna" (line
49), a word that signifies a series of contradictions: beauty and virginity, cosmetics and poison. The tarot-
card reader accordingly offers a future that is equally ambiguous. But looking more closely at the figure of
Belladonna, readers can see she is another example of Eliot's beautiful, dangerous women, who are
simultaneously victims and victimizers—abused and abuser, victim of seduction and the source of it.
Readers will meet others like her. Belladonna, it should be noted, is also an ancient poisonous plant—and
therefore appropriate flora for this landscape.
As a sick body, the wasteland contains poisons within its soil. Appropriately, then, the inhabitants are
compared to the personae in Charles Baudelaire's poem "Au Lecteur," which translates as "To the Reader."
Baudelaire (1821–67) was a French poet and one of the most influential poets of the 19th century. In "Au
Lecteur" is an assemblage of avaricious and predatory folk. The worst among them is Ennui who lives in
the constant state of boredom and listlessness that Eliot has already conjured through the images of a
decaying, "forgetful" (line 6), idle, "blind" crowd "walking round in a ring" (line 56), going nowhere fast.

Though, as the speaker says, the Hanged Man (line 55) does not turn up, this card will also eventually
figure in the poem. From the traditional tarot card pack, the Hanged Man features a man hanging upside
down by his foot, representing the self-sacrifice of a fertility god; his death will bring resurrection to the
land. So here is the first notable reference—albeit obscure—to the Fisher King: a figure from the Arthurian
legend who has been wounded and cannot stand. All he does is fish. The Fisher King is associated both
with disease and promised healing. A regular refrain in the poem is the faint possibility of restoration:
"That corpse you planted last year in your garden, / Has it begun to sprout?" (lines 71–72) could be a
variation on the fertility god motif—the promised death and resurrection that could bring about new life in
the land.

Indeed, the final lines of this part reinforce this reading. The words "hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—
mon frère!" (hypocrite reader!—my fellow,—my brother) are taken directly from the closing lines of
Baudelaire's poem "Au Lecteur." As such, it strongly suggests that the readers are part of this wasteland.
They walk in circles, seeking life, but becoming lost in boredom and listlessness. Readers must wait, keep
the body buried, and let life emerge once more from death.

Though linked thematically to the other sections of the poem, Part 1 is truly a "heap of broken images" (line
22). And that's what Eliot—especially after consulting with Ezra Pound—wanted to achieve: broken
connections between people, disparate voices, chaos in the aftermath of war. But despite the giddy sense of
impending doom, Eliot wished to use his art in order to gain some measure of control over the chaos he
witnessed. He wanted to make his poem a sanctuary for the people seeking shelter amid the ruins of the
modern wasteland.