The Waste Land Group

Question:

cculver83
cculver83
Student
College - Sophomore

Is there relevance in his mentioning London in Part I of The Waste Land?

Rate question:

Posted by cculver83 on Saturday October 3, 2009 at 8:20 PM and tagged with london bridge, relevence, t.s. eliot, the waste land.

Answers:


  1. kc4u Teacher
    College - Senior

    eNotes Editor

    It is one of the most relevant and memorable, if not haunting passages in the whole of The Waste Land. The London Bridge passage is a great example of peopled solitude--how in a mass of "madding crowd's ignoble strife," all the layers of individuality are unknotted. The individual dissolves in a shapeless chaos of the circuitous collective life, which hardly has any significance or connectivity on psycho-moral or spiritual way.

    It is a brilliant passage on death too--death of the creative spirit of man. Everyman looks just the same, no individuating difference whatsoever. The dialogue with a supposed Stetson connotes nonconnectivity, absurdity of communication and the depths of acute identity crisis. The planting of the corpse is a typically Eliotesque anti-romantic subversion. But, very ironically, there is doubt if even that corpse will ever bloom. Such is the extent of the world's sterility.

    Rate answer:

    Posted by kc4u on Saturday October 31, 2009 at 11:14 AM