Prefer Nothing to Painful Feeling

Memories seem to play a key role in the development of plot in T.S. Eliot’s, “The Waste Land”. It also seems to be the source of pain throughout the development of the characters and their stories, and I find it to be particularly relevant to part I, The Burial of the Dead. Eliot dwells in hurt and shows his depression of memories that are sweet but in the negative present only causes pain. He shares a familiar beginning line, “April is the cruelest month…,” but takes an unusual path in his description of an upcoming season that is usually regarded as a positive outcome (1). Instead of looking forward to the upcoming blooming season that is typically an allusion to the renewal of life and new beginnings, Eliot dreads its arrival. He would rather feel nothing as apparent in his reflections of the winter, than deal with the upheaval of emotions that the new season will bring. He describes the “forgetful snow,” as a better alternative than the “memory and desire, stirring/ dull roots with spring rain,” clearing showing that Eliot would be more content with the act of forgetting (6, 3-4).