The Waste Land and the Marabar Caves

Throughout T.S Elliot’s poem, ‘The Wasteland’, there resonates a sense of nothingness, hollowness that is almost nihilistic, and that is supposed to characterize life as it has become in the West. Hence there is use of imagery that depicts sterility, nature is continuously evoked, yet not in the manner that one would expect, as rejuvenating and fertile, but as stony, that the mountains are dead and there is no water.

This depiction however reminds one of the description of the Marabar Caves in Forster’s ‘A Passage to India’. Thus Elliot describes the Marabar caves saying that their “pattern never varies, and no carving, not even a bees’ nest or a bat, distinguishes one from another. Nothing, nothing attaches to them…” Nihilism is of course reflected from this instance, as well as the fact that the caves are describes as being hollow, which again reminds one of ‘The Wasteland’. Moreover what is also interesting to note is the monotony of these caves as well, a notion which is well explored in the poem as well. In the same vein we can look at a reference from the poem which reminds one of the Marabar caves and mountains:

“The road winding above among the mountains

Which are mountains of rock without water…

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit

Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit

There is not even silence in the mountains

But dry sterile thunder without rain

There is not even solitude in the mountains

But red sullen faces sneer and snarl”

With reference to the above snippet from the poem, the lack of silence is also a reminder of the caves in which Mrs. Moore and Adela hear those horrific echoes, and the red sullen faces remind of the incident inside the cave where Mrs. Moore thinks she is attacked by some creature in the cave.

Another parallel can also be drawn with the sexual scene portrayed in the third part of ‘The Wasteland’ and the alleged rape of Adela that occurs in the Marabar caves:

“The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,

Endeavours to engage her in caresses

Which still are unreproved, if undesired.

Flushed and decided, he assaults at once…”

Can it not be said that Adela is also bored? At any rate, sexual encounters are also devoid of meaning in both cases.

The point of juxtaposing the Wasteland to the Marabar Caves is that though the West expects some form of revival to come from the colony, especially India, Forster points out that India is also the place where the Marabar Caves exist, which only look “romantic in certain lights and at suitable distances”, and from the perspective of the people who actually see them, they are “uncertain whether he has had an interesting experience or a dull one or any experience at all”. Nevertheless it seems to emphasize that instead of finding “Shantih Shantih Shantih” in India, you might encounter instead the Marabar Caves.