Introduction to the Poem:
“The Burial of the Dead” is the first section of The Waste Land. Here The Dead are those who are spiritually dead. When it is observed and analysed, it is found that dead are materialists. Materialism does not accept the independent existence of the soul. So, a materialist must believe that he does not possess any soul at all.
The citizens of the waste land are spiritually dead. They do not like to be disturbed from their stupor or the futile routine of the modern life. As such an idea of spiritual regeneration is uninviting and painful to them. Moreover, their value system is different from the traditional one. April is traditionally regarded as a symbol of spring and re - birth, while winter is a symbol of decay and death. The citizens of waste land regard April a bad and cruel month because it reminds them of their spiritual decay and makes them think of regeneration. They are happy in winter because they can enjoy and make merry during that period.
To T. S. Eliot materialists and sensualists are those who are spiritually dead, though physically alive. They are the dead human beings. And their land which is full of materialistic and sensual activities is The Waste Land. For it is useless for spiritual life.
Summary of the First Section of the Poem:
For the wastelanders, April is the cruellest month which brings birth to flowers from the land. These flowers imply re-birth. The arrival of April is unwelcome to them. April mixes memory with desire, the memory of the death, of fertility god along with the desire of re - birth. April brings with it the life - giving rain which is disliked by the wastelanders. They like winter which is symbol of death. It keeps them warm and looking for excitement and joy of life, though winter feeds life a little. Tiresias, the main character of the poem asked the girl her reaction to the spring rain. She told him that the spell of warm weather came over them (lovers) on the lake margin of the Starnbergersee, and surprised them with a shower of spring rain. They took shelter under the row of trees standing along the lake margin. Then they walked on in the sunlit landscape as far as the Hofgarden, and then went into it. There at a cafe, they drank coffee and had a gossip for an hour or so.
Tiresias, the protagonist of the poem, asks the young woman if she is a Russian. She replies that she is not a Russian at all. Although her parents came from Lithuania, yet she is a real German. She tells that when they were children and stayed with their cousin, the archduke, he took her out on a sledge and she was frightened. He asked her to hold on tight and thus they went down the snow - covered slope. In the mountains she felt free from all sorts of regulations of life. Then she told him that she read much in the night and went holidaying to the south.
When Tiresias hears the activities of materialistic life from the young woman named Marie, he feels dejected. He asks himself what roots can hold firmly the materialistic life of man. What plants of cultural ideas can grow out of this stony surface of the barren mind? Tiresias addresses the materialist as the son of Adam and says that he (materialist) cannot feel or guess that there is in his heart the soul that shines as the sun in the country of his physical body and throbs with life in his heart. It is so because he has limited knowledge of the spiritual world. As a result of which he sees only the broken images of Christ, soul, God and other concepts. There is total loss of spiritual values in the modern world. This is the land where excessive heat makes vegetation impossible. For want of spirituality, there is complete dryness i.e., spiritual desolation and barrenness. There is left no place for shelter. The tree of materialism gives no comfortable shelter in time of need. The music of cricket does not offer any relaxation to materialist. The dry pebbles lying along the margin of his heart's lake are not crashed by waves of human sympathy. The only place of shelter is this shady rock of Christianity which is red with Christ's sacred blood. Then Tiresias asks the materialist to come under the shadow of Christianity. This shadow of Christianity is different from the shadow of selfishness. The shadow of materialism or selfishness chases the man right from the morning to evening. In this way, the shadow of Christianity will enable the materialist to see the principal causes of worries haunting ever in the mind of the materialist.
Tiresias’ thoughts are disturbed by a four - line German song. He sees that a lover is singing those lines to his beloved. The song is “The wind blows fresh from the homeland. O my Irish girl, where do you linger?” Thereupon the beloved tells the lover that a year ago he gave her hyacinths. And because of her hyacinth ornamentation, people called her the hyacinth girl. Her sad lover says that when they returned from hyacinth garden late in the evening, her arms were full of hyacinths and her hair was wet with evening dew. He could speak nothing and his eyes were blinded with tears. He was highly dazzled. He was neither living nor dead. He had no idea what he should do when he saw that her beautiful eyes and face were silent giving and impression of cheerlessness at the gift of hyacinths. The lover felt that the sea of his life was desolate and empty.
When Tiresias moves forward, he is stopped by an agent of Clairvoyante called Madame Sosostris. He begins to appreciate her in high and low so that Tiresias might be tempted as her client. The agent tells him that though this woman has had a cold lately, she is known to be the wisest Clairvoyante. He tells him that she has a mysterious pack of cards with which she tells the fortunes of the people. He then takes Tiresias to her. Putting the pack of cards on the table, the lady tells that one of the cards bears the image of the drowned Phoenician sailor. Then she points to the drowned sailor's bright eyes calling them sea pearls. She then puts another card which bears the image of Belladona, the Lady of Rocks or the lady of situations. Another image is that of the man with three staves (staffs). Then she puts the card with the image of wheel (of Perfect Law). The next image is that of the one - eyed merchant. The next card seems to be blank. The fourth card is a blurred outline which is something undefined. It is something which the one - eyed merchant carries on his back. She adds that she is forbidden by her conscience to look into its nature. She does not find in the pack the card with the image of the Hanged Man. From his absence, she fears that Tiresias may suffer death by water. Then she suddenly sees the crowds of people walking round something as if in a ring. Then she starts collecting the cards. After collecting the cards, she thanks Tiresias, but before his leaving her, she requests him to tell Mrs. Equitone, if he sees her. He should tell her that Madame Sosostris herself will bring her horoscope. She finally tells him that Clairvoyante must be very careful these days.
After leaving Madame Sosostris, Tiresias moved forward. While crossing the London Bridge, he halted at one spot. It was a winter dawn. He observed that the city was artificial and buried under the brown fog of winter even at the time of dawn. Under the sheet of brown fog, the city was brightly lit up by electric lights. It had lost all natural simplicity. A crowd of people flowed over London Bridge. Tiresias had never thought that their spiritual death had ruined so many people. Crowds of people going to both ends of Bridge passed by him like streams. When they were passing, short and unusual sighs were breathed out. Every person was lost in thoughts of material gains. Some people moved up the hill, while others flowed down King William Street towards the place where the clock of St. Mary Woolnoth Church struck the hours, making a cheerless sound at final stroke of ninth hour. In the crowd Tiresias noticed an acquaintance. Stopping him, he called Stetson and reminded him that both had been together in the ships at Mylae. Tiresias also asked Stetson if the corpse of disbelief that he had buried in his heart's garden had yet begun to sprout into the plant of belief or not. If it had, would it bloom that year? If it hadn’t, had the sudden frost damaged its roots? Tiresias then remembered to have advised him to keep the dog of Humanitarianism away from its bed. Otherwise it would dig scepticism up again, and thus would prevent the rebirth of life. When Stetson made no response, Tiresias remembers that he had called Stetson hypocrite reader, his fellow man and his brother.
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