The Waste Land | Part Summaries

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Part Summaries Chart

Part Summary

The epigraph to The Waste Land comes from the Satyricon of Petronius
Epigraph
"For once I myself saw with my own ...Read More

The poem begins with a striking image of spring with the main speaker n
Part 1, The Burial of the Dead
paradoxically, life grows out of death...Read More

The second section of The Waste Land begins with what appears to be a
Part 2, A Game of Chess
woman sitting on a chair that looks l...Read More

This part begins with familiar scene: a scarred, "broken," and dry landsc
Part 3, The Fire Sermon
"brown land," the speaker says, ny...Read More

The speaker tells of Phlebas the Phoenician, dead for two weeks now. T
Part 4, Death by Water
bones, and Phlebas undergoes the...Read More

After the brief water interlude, the poem returns to the wasteland—and t
Part 5, What the Thunder Said
words imply that things are c...Read More

Plot SummaryEpigraph