T.S Eliot uses various lexical techniques to achieve his purposes in the extract from The Waste Land.

Eliot implements in his poem specific stylistic choices in regards to the composition of narration. These selections assist in inferring the poets intentions in causing an unstable and diverting narrative structure to make the reader aware of differing verisimilitudes. The beginning of the extract, line one hundred and thirty nine, begins with the perspective from an autodiegetic narrator. The indicator of this fact is the personal pronoun I, the penultimate word of the first sentence. This singular subjective lexis reveals an overt narrator from which the story is told. The notable absence of speech marks means a conversation is not taking place; the narrator is providing a commentary using direct speech. The character focaliser in the first sentence is Lils husband. The focalised phenomenon is him being demobbed. The narrator has his own focalised points of reference. This shows a narrative is taking place inside a narrative and a hierarchy of levels of reality are being described simultaneously. I didnt mince my words The contraction didnt is a sign that the narrator is speaking in an informal register. The idiom mince my words is also indicative of this narrative style. The character has a conversational tone to their speech and utilising these colloquial phrases gives an engaging and emotive connection to the reader. The barperson interjecting HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME, firstly on line one hundred and forty one, is an abrupt shift in narrative style to the third person is unveiled to the reader. The application of capital letters also suggests that this person is shouting at the narrator which highlights the importance of the speaker. Eliot is employing intradiegetic narration to

cause dramatic conflict. This juxtaposition gives immediacy to the text and a jarring provocation on the reader. This is significant as this phrase repeated five times throughout the extract to affect the narrative structure: The repeated call of the bartender HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME is a metonymic detail which in the context of The Waste Land...gains symbolic force through repetition until it undermines the solidity of the narrative world.1 This use of repetition according to Davidson actually ruptures the verisimilitude. The metonymic detail conveys the situation is taking place in a pub at closing time. This form of digesis mediates between the character of the narrator in the story and the omnipresent narrator. The unsteady narrative of this particular section of The Waste Land has a probable theory to the reasoning of the genesis: the poem is born out of Eliots desire to reflect the time of his age. The work is the product of the unprecedented First World War, a turbulent time of propaganda and differing perspectives from opposing sides: The Waste Land was a poem of the Great War and of its aftermath, that reaping which was also a sowing which would itself reap the whirlwind.2 With this background and the subject of the section Eliot forces the reader to question and inquire who is speaking, what is being shown and the shape of the unfolding events utilising Henry James methods of showing and telling3. This creates a richness of imagery for the interpreter to comprehend and digest.

1 2

Harriet Davidson, T.S Eliot and Hermeneutics (Louisiana State University Press, 1985), p.115 Christopher Ricks, T.S Eliot and Prejudice, (Faber and Faber, 1988), p. 268 3 Henry James, Percy Lubbock, Letters of Henry James, (Macmillan, 1920), p.384