This passage continues Eliot’s motif of nature throughout the poem. However it does not present nature as pristine. The imagery of a cold winter fog is mixed in with a dirty brown fog, offering a strong contrast between nature and pollution. The “Brown Fog” seems to be a reference to the industrial revolution in Victorian London. During the time industrial pollution was rampant, especially due to the now iconic imagery of the smoke towers of factories around the city. It seems to suggest how humans cause pollution through our industry and our numbers. The brown fog is a result of the dirty smoke mixing in with the clean air, producing a dirty haze. However, we would only notice this contrast because it’s mixing with clean nature.

In life we only seem to notice the effects of pollution when they begin to mix in and change the clean nature, giving us a way to contrast the dirty from the clean. Eliot is well aware of this and uses this to his advantage. He pairs the words and imagery together of “the brown fog” (the dirty) with “a winter dawn”, with winter evoking sterile white, clean imagery. Eliot’s poem works in a similar way. The contrast of Eliot’s techniques, poetic and non-poetic, stands out more when thrown in together. The broken pieces of the poem would not be as noticeable if they were separated into their own short little poems. However the fragmented nature of the poem is more noticeable when it is mixed together, contrasting much like clean nature highlights pollution.

Another interesting note is how directly after the mention of a brown fog, Eliot mentions, “a crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not though death had undone so many”. The rapid growth of humans seems to be creating a different form of pollution. While their actions effect nature, the growth of the population could be affecting the city itself. Perhaps its meant to suggest the larger crowds dirtying the city like the fog dirties the air. Perhaps the crowd pollutes the city by another means? The line “I had not though death had undone so many” makes the crowd seem like walking corpses. However, Elliot might be suggesting that the crowds are only behaving like corpses. As the city grows, so does society and they way people act in a big city is far different from a small town. Society makes the crowd behave a certain way, polluting their individualism into something the fits in line more with society. Elliot sees them as being “undone” because they have been polluted by society.

Dead land, dull roots, dried tubers. These are all images of dead or dying nature. However, in the winter this is not visible. Because in the winter, everything is covered in forgetful snow. The snow covers the land and hides all the broken and dead images under its snow-white blanket. White is the color of innocence. As long ans the land is covered in snow pollution seems to be non existent or at least forgotten for some time.

However, as soon as the snow melts, the cruel reality shows its face again. That is why April is described as the cruelest of all months. It is the month that confronts mankind with the damages it has done to nature. Over the winter men could forget about pollution, because they could not see it as well as in the other seasons, when it was not covered by “forgetful snow”. Now that it melts the dull roots, and the dead land become visible again. Memory and desire get mixed. The memory of pollution and the desire that it was not there. But it is and April shows it, when it start waking up the dying land. The “spring rain” washes away the “forgetful snow” and confronts people with their hidden secrets. Nothings stays hidden forever.

The poem, therefore, starts with a relevation of pollution by the melting snow. As the poem goes on it explores and examines this relevation of pollution further.

Eliot explores the themes of nature and non-nature, focusing specifically within the themes on the motif of pollution. Pollution exists as the link between nature and non-nature. In this case the “river” signifies nature whilst “Oil and tar” signify non-nature. It is only through spoiling nature, that “Oil and tar” become pollution. Eliot successfully captures the industrial state of America during the 1920s through the motif of pollution. Due to the huge boom in industry, more and more waste was subsequently created. Eliot effectively forms a commentary on the negative ways in which society therefore spoils nature through the waste and by-products it creates. The image of pollution spreading throughout water is particularly effective as it suggests how pollution formed by society becomes almost uncontainable after it has been created. As “Oil and tar” continue to spread further down the river, pollution too continues to spread, spoiling nature and leaving it in a state of ruin.

Additionally through Eliot’s choice of oil and tar as the materials to represent pollution he emphasises the extreme nature and impact that society has upon nature. As the process of removing oil and tar from water is particularly challenging, Eliot suggests the severe significance of the pollution created by society, even perhaps proposing its irreversible nature.

The motif of pollution runs throughout the poem however it could also be said that the poem itself is polluted. The poem being a combination of fragments appears almost jumbled together, each stanza different to another. Pollution in the form of waste or rubbish is jumbled together in a similar way, each fragment within the poem can therefore be interpreted as a different piece of waste that collectively forms pollution.

A corpse flower is a certain sort of flower. With this meaning, the sentence could be read literally as a question about the flowers the person planted. However, there is a double meaning in this line. Corpse can also mean “dead body”. A dead body is a impurfying entity. A possible interpretation of this line would, therefore, be that mankind even pollutes their self-created nature by burying dead bodies in their gardens.

Gardens are a symbol of men wanting to dominate and control nature. They appear several times in the poem. There is the Hyacinth garden, there are the gardens with the frosty silence and other gardens in the Unreal City. In the form of these gardens, men create their own nature, within their range of control. Gardens are orderly and beautiful and predictable. Nature outside of gardens, real nature, however, is anything but predictable. It can be harsh and cruel and deadly. These features are taken from it, when creating gardens. Gardens are some kind of “fake nature”, that only present the good features of nature. They are not threatening. They should be beautiful and pure.

Pollution, however, does not make a exception for them. Mankind is, therefore, even polluting their own creation. They are not only polluting the wild, untamable nature outside of their control, but also their very own gardens. Pollution is slowly turning all kinds of nature, no matter whether inside or outside of society, into a Wasteland.

The dead body is, furthermore, polluting not only nature but society as well. Gardens are part of domesticity, the household of a person. By burying a dead body in ones household, this household or domestic realm of a person gets polluted and contaminated.

This line is also connected to the very opening of the poem: “April is the cruelest month”. In April the first flowers start to sprout, the snow that covers everything in forgetfulness and hides the secrets and sins of everyone, is melting and leaves behind the cruel reality. Pollution becomes visible in April, because there is no longer snow to cover it and everything that had be buried comes back to the surface.

Perhaps another example of human impact on the natural world?

I feel like this subtly captures the natural world vs. modern world hints we discussed last class.

Another hint to water shortage.

Water is an important motif in "The Wasteland". It is one representation of nature and now by the end of the poem it seems to have run out. There is no water left. Earlier in the poem the pollution of water is described, the power of water to take a human life. Water is the most valuable good on earth. Without water there would be no life. Maybe Eliot is hinting to the wast of water and the danger that having no water would oppose to human society.

this image reminds me of the smog that covers some big cities. Emissions pollute the air and accumulate in a cloud of brown fog above the roofs of the city. The Unreal city is causing pollution and destroying nature.

The wast of society polluting the river and nature in general.

Persinification of thunder. nature gets personified

Interesting imagery here. Under what kind of tent did the river exist/dwell?

Rather than a real, natural sylvan scene seen through a window, an image of a natural scene unnaturally depicted in a painting hanging in a wholly unnatural, sumptuously decorated room - material objects/displays of wealth used as a substitute for nature here.

Makes me think of UV-rays

the power of nature to take lives.

this description reminds me of a roboter hand.

nature invading non-nature, or maybe the door keeps the wind (nature) outside.

synthetic is unnatural

Is it autumn when leaves fall off trees?

Can it be said that the term "built environment" refers to how humans are implementing their presence throughout nature?

Nice move.

This isn't a wish, it's a property of our evolution. We evolved in a social world as well as a physical world. As a social primate, it's something we do naturally. OH SHIT, NATURE!

This is so darkly true. We tend to praise our impact on the world, but it's very much something we believe to be true, but is not. If human kind disappeared tomorrow, the Earth would be back to awesome in about 500 years (I think, there is a whole book about this. Correct this if you have read the book and recall better than I).

Although are all birds as good as flying as the others and horses at running? There has to be some variance, and not from lack of repetition. In the same line of reasoning, even if all men were born to "activity and sagacity of understanding," some must have more innate gifts with it. The rest of this paragraph seems to credit persistence with progress, but nature does play at least some sort of role. After all, we can't all be basketball players, no matter how hard we try.

This aligns with Confucius thinker Xunzi's attitude on properly cultivating morality in others. We are guided by our desires: whatever we feel a sense of lack in, we desire that object. It is the role of those with cultivated morality (gentlemen, sages) to act as an exemplar of moral goods, so that others who have yet to be cultivated desire what they have.

need both

Nature versus nurture

I find this quote to fascinating. Isocrates isn't necessarily a cynic, but he certainly is not the happiest of philosophers.

Men who act according to nature would be free of socially imposed restrictions and true justice would be present. The "best and strongest" are pacified by society with the promise of honor through equality and justice.

convention vs. nature

Socrates is searching for the definition/nature of rhetoric, to pin it down and understand purposes