"The Waste Land":The Mythical Background.
... ancient myths and legions,both Christian and non christian as objective corelative. Eloit comments on the singnificance of Tirasias in these words:Tiresias,although a mere spectatorand not indeed a "character" is yet the most important personage in the poem,uniting all the rest...."What Tiresias sees in fact, is the substance of the poem.The story of Tiresias is given by Ovid.He lived in the time of King Oedipus in Thebes.Once he saw two serpents matingtogether.He was cursed by themand transformed in to a woman.After seven years he again saw another pair of snakes in copulation.They cursed him and he was tranformed in to a man.So,he had experiences of both life as a man and as a woman.Later on,he was questioned by Zeus and his wife Hera,as to whether man is more passionate than a woman.He declared that woman was more passionate than man.The goddess Hera cursed himwith blindnes.Tiresias became blind and he prayed to Zeus for mercy.Zeus,however,granted him a vision of prophet and as such he could predict things. Oedipus, the king of Thebes,unwillingly killed his father,and married his won mother.for this sex crime,the god cursed himand his land with a virulent epidemicand famine.The King consulted the blind prophet for the cause of the calamity.So, King Odipus was advised to offer penance for his inner purification and the removal of the curse from the land. Tiresias belongs to the past and present.He is a link between the waste land of King Oedipus and the waste land of modern civilization.Moreover,he has experience of life both as man and as woman.Though physically blind,he is gifted with prophetic vision.he is an enlightened commentator on the modern waste land."He is at once the relic of the past and an inhabitant of the present,at once a prophet and detached spectator of the agonizing dramaof contemporary history and a participatorand fellow sufferer,with a superior insight into the meaning of the ghostly masquerade,miscalled "human life".Psychologically speaking,he is the conscience of humanity,banished,and disowned by thoughtless men and women,but still strong enough to prick the bubbles of their illusions,joys,hopes,and fears.He is the voice og sensitive humanity deploring the loss of the spirituality in the modern worldand probing into the starnge disease which it has,with criminal complacency,mistaken for health.His vision pierces through thin veneerof complacency and lays bare the sordid cares and languid pursuits,the boredome and sheer vacuity,of which humanity in the modern waste land has fallen a prey".In other words he is an embodyment of human conscience and of higher humanity which deplores the loss of faithand normal values in the modern world.Tiresias,is therefore ,a comprehensive symbol of prophetic commentation who gives his impressions and comments on the present day world.According to Eloit ,"Tirasias is although a mere spectator and not indeed a character,is yet the most important personage in the poem,uniting all the rest.Just as the one eyed merchant,seller of currents,melts into the Phoenician Sailor,and the latter is not wholly distincts from Ferdinand,Prince of Naples,so all the women are one women,and the two sexes meet in Tiresias." The seasonal cycle of nature is responsible for the primitivevegetation myth.Winter is the season of deathwhile spring is the season of re birth.The life giving giving spring rain gives vitality to the trees and plants.In ancient Egypt the effigy of the vegitation god,known by different names likeOsiris, Adonis,and Atis was field with grains of corn and buried uneder the earth.This meant that the vegetation god was dead.After sometimesthe grains sprouted from the earth indicating the re birth of the god.This has been reffered to in The Burial of the Dead.In some places the vegitation god was immersed in the river or in the sun.After sometimes,the effigy appeared on the surface and this was regarded as the re birth of the vegitation god.There is a fererence to this myth,in the section entitled Death By Water. Eloit connects the story of the Holy Grail with the Fisher King.According to him,the Grail was in the possession of Fisher King.He was a verysensual and sinful King and therefore he became sick and his kingdome suffered from drought and famine.According to another another ...