Waste of Life
... Many consider the poem to be written about people wanting death or trying to maintain life and love. To me it is a poem written with many different speakers in it all of them trying to find a meaning in what they are doing, and that death will allow for the beginning of new life. ... Spring time makes someone think of new life beginning to sprout, and young animals. ... In a Greek myth this flower is said to of sprouted from the blood of slain Hyancinthus; it would seem those lines would add to the life from death meaning from this poem. ... He may have been upset with life or questioning it, and perhaps had gone out with his old friend to do some drinking. The man sits and thinks his life through realizing all he does is just a seemingly worthless routine. ... )” (Eliot 159-160) By this someone would see that the only reason she is having an abortion is to protect her own life because another child may kill her. With that in mind the thought of death and life come back into play. ... Through out the last lines he is describing all the things he has seen in life, and in lines 290 through 300 it seems like he is being offered new life. Then the last lines say: “Burning burning burning burning/ O Lord Thou Pluckest me out” (Eliot 309-310) Those lines may indicate that the sailor is a drift at see looking back on his life, and that he is begging for death. ... The poem’s second stanza has a metaphor for the rotting body when it says: “He passed the stages of his age and youth” (Eliot 317) this helps somebody to depict death and life at the same time.