THE WASTE LAND -DEATH BY WATER

THE WASTE LAND - DEATH BY WATER

Ø  Water is the traditional symbol of purification and regeneration, but in the modern land of desolation it has lost its functions and has become a source of destruction. This is so because man has become beastly, given to the pursuit of wealth, and sensuous pleasures. Phelbas, the Phoenician sailor, was young and tall and handsome but he was drowned because he was obsessed with profit and loss.

Ø  He was caught in a whirlpool and passed the various stages of his age youth. The reference is to the ritual immersion of the effigy of the vegetation god, Osiris, who was supposed to pass the various stages of life in the reverse order. He is old when he is immersed in water but becomes young and then a boy and is finally reborn. But there is no re-birth for the Phoenician sailor, because of his sordid commercialism.

Ø  The moderns are guided by mercenary forces only and not by moral and spiritual principles. At present, the moderns turn the wheel of life themselves, i.e. a life uncontrolled by spiritual considerations. Complete secularization is the root cause of the contemporary decay and degeneration.