T.S. Eliot writes very deliberately, including just the right details and organizing the poem so that each phrase and section is arranged in the most effective way possible. The following passage is from Eliot's The Waste Land:
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust (25-30)
This passage seems to be strategically placed after several lines that allude to a passage from Ecclesiastes 12 of the Bible and directly before a number of allusions and examples that illustrate the "fear in a handful of dust" (Eliot 1-76). To completely understand the meaning of the passage above, the context in which it is used and the allusions that are employed must first be recognized and understood.
First, the several lines preceding the above passage allude to Ecclesiastes 12 of the Bible which portrays feelings of hopelessness and of meaninglessness; meanwhile, the selected passage contains a small sense of hope as well as an invitation to the reader to see what Eliot sees. "A heap of broken images" or "And the dry stone no sound of water" are both phrases included in the preceding lines that lack a sense of hope and that support the allusion to Ecclesiastes 12 in which "Everything is meaningless!" (Eliot 22, 24) (New International Version, Eccl.12). Following these lines that portray hopelessness is the passage written above that first seems to offer a small ray of hope by announcing "There is a shadow under this red rock" (Eliot 25). But even in that phrase lies a hint of something ominous or foreboding with the word "red."
Eliot, or the speaker of Eliot's poem, seems to be inviting the reader into a place of solace, which seems to be something that is hard to find in this waste land or land of hopelessness and meaninglessness. The speaker even interrupts his thoughts by putting the invitation in parentheses: "(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)" which seems to point to the fact that the reader and the speaker need to step outside of destruction and despair of the waste land in order to be able to see what exactly is happening on the inside of the waste land. As Ronald Bush points out, "we sense an emotional logic that is 'constantly amalgamating' fragments into a single vision, and we are drawn into the poem's 'point of view'" (251). This invitation thus leads to what the speaker would like to show the reader: "And I will show you something different...I will show you fear in a handful of dust" (Eliot 27, 30). The speaker's invitation also seems to foreshadow what will be revealed in the rest of The Waste Land poem.
The rest of The Waste Land, especially the rest of "The Burial of the Dead" following the selected passage, seems to provide examples and allusions to support the "fear in a handful of dust" that the speaker wants to show the reader (Eliot 30). Destruction, despair, and the idea of a meaningless life (as discussed in the previous paragraph) would be plenty enough to create an image of "fear in a handful of dust." Again, the allusion to Ecclesiastes helped to create the image that life is meaningless in The Waste Land and the rest of the examples and allusions in "The Burial of the Dead" help to create an image of a land that is devoid of life (or anything that resembles life). For example, Cleanth Brooks, Jr. points out that the section directly following the passage selected above "begins with the scrap of song...states the opposite half of the paradox which underlies the poem: namely, that life at its highest moments of meaning and intensity resembles death" (188). Brooks also points out that line 42 of "The Burial of the Dead" reveals that love--also a representation of life--"cannot living, a life of despair and hopelessness.
The passage selected also has allusions of its own, as well as references to other phrases or sections of The Waste Land. According to the notes of various critics and commentators of The Waste Land, Eliot's personal struggles during the time he wrote this poem are also significant to some of the imagery he uses. Some of his struggles--as agreed upon by several critics--include periods of illness, frustration with politics since he did not like Democracy, and the perishing of culture (especially of England), morals, and his spiritual life. Each of these struggles are portrayed or exemplified throughout The Waste Land and are components of the "fear in a handful of dust." The struggles are the things he fears. The destruction and deterioration of England, as well as Eliot's personal feelings about England at the time, represent the "dust." Likewise, throughout the poem are small rays of hope like "Winter keeps us warm," "There is shadow under this red rock," and possibly even "Who is the third who walks always beside you?" (5, 25, 359). These bits of hope may verily represent Eliot's attempt to search and find hope despite his internal and external struggles.
The first line of the above selected passage, "There is shadow under this red rock," seems to allude to Isaiah 32, verse 2 that says "Each man [refers to the Messiah] will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert, and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land" ("The Waste Land," side notes) (New International Version Isaiah 32:2). This allusion supports the idea stated earlier that line 25--"There is shadow under this red rock"--reveals a ray of hope because as Isaiah reveals, the Messiah will be a means of protection and comfort (like a shelter from a storm or a shadow from a thirsty land). The reader might wonder, however, if the hope provided by this line is false because the word red seems to hint towards "violence and destruction" ("The Waste Land," side notes). In light of Eliot's spiritual degeneration at the time he was writing this poem, perhaps he was trying to question the Messiah's (or God's) ability to comfort or heal such a waste land and anyone in the waste land.
The final critical factor in understanding the meaning of the selected passage is to look at what the particular words or phrases in the passage represent or allude to. For example, the passage as a whole is actually taken from another of Eliot's poems entitled "The Death of Saint Narcissus" ("The Waste Land," side notes). Although the lines are changed around a bit in the section "The Burial of the Dead" from the poem "The Death of Saint Narcissus," both poems involve the speaker showing the reader or listener something that involves death and despair. Several words in this passage are references to numerous other uses of the same words in other parts of the poem. For example, the word shadow is mentioned four times in this one passage; the first two uses of the word shadow seem to represent a refuge from the waste land and the latter two seem to represent a passage of time (Parker, side notes). The word red may also be worth noting because it seems to evoke the feeling of violence (Parker, side notes). Some parts of the poem refer to the word stone--rocks that man have formed into or used as other objects--but this passage refers to the word rock, which appear naturally and are usually left alone by man (Parker, side notes). Unlike this passage, the parts of the poem that use the word stone are most likely referring to all of the destruction of man's civilization (or anything man-made), thus creating the waste land. Parker also notes that a person must be going east in order for "your shadow at morning striding behind you / or your shadow at evening rising to meet you" (side notes) (Eliot 28-29). Finally, the last line "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" (Eliot 30) makes references to certain feelings or descriptions that are used in several other places in the poem. Some of these feelings or descriptions include danger, fear, things that are dry (as in a waste land), hands, and the drawing of the reader into the poem (Parker, side notes).
Eliot's excellent skill in connecting together the different descriptions of things allows the readers to create in their minds detailed images and understand the various references and allusions discussed. Each section, phrase, and word in the poem is accurately placed so as to create lead-ins, conclusions, examples, connections, and detailed descriptions. The passage selected is appropriately placed at the beginning of the poem because it seems to provide a setting ("under the shadow of this red rock") in which the reader can sit while listening and looking at what the speaker has to show throughout the rest of The Waste Land poem. Likewise, this particular passage prepares the reader for what is to come in the poem by alluding to the upcoming descriptions and situations in The Waste Land: "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." The selected passage, like any other passage from the poem, only needs to be scrutinized in order to understand and recognize its meaning, the context in which it is used, the allusions, and the references that draw many connections.
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