Death by Water, Regeneration and the Fisher King in T.S. Eliot’s the Waste Land

1068 Words5 Pages
Although three completely different points of focus, water, regeneration/lack of regeneration and the legend of the Fisher King, they are recurrent throughout the poems five parts and intertwine on many levels to allude to a deeper meaning behind almost every line. A repeated theme in the poem is death by water. This in itself is a strong statement as drowning is one of the bleakest ways of dying on account of the slow and suffocating nature. The first mention of water comes in line 8 with reference to the Starnbergersee Lake where King Ludwig ll of Bavaria drowned in 1886. The phrase ‘Fear death by water’ is used in line 55, preceded by reference to ‘The Hanged Man’ which alludes to the self-sacrifice of the fertility god whose resurrection will bring fertility to the land and people. Like many of the intertextual references in the poem, this relates to both the idea of regeneration and legend of the Fisher King. Eliot’s first line is about April being the cruellest month contrary to the popular notion of April representing spring and growth. The speaker here longs for winter again, claiming it to be ‘warm’. It is clear here that the speaker finds it difficult to accept the new start or regeneration which spring offers because they find it hard to let go of the past which winter holds on to. Furthermore from a more Freudian point of view, it could be argued that Eliot is the speaker throughout, subconsciously portraying his own envy of people who are happy because he isn’t for various reasons such as a disappointing married life which isn’t the fairy-tale new life marriage is envisioned as. Eliot himself claims that The Waste Land came from the state of mind he was in caused by his marriage. There is evidence of this particularly in part lll. ‘The Fire Sermon’ where there are allusions to marriage and also of regeneration. In Buddha’s preaching, lust and

More about Death by Water, Regeneration and the Fisher King in T.S. Eliot’s the Waste Land

Open Document