"Death by Water"

An interesting section of T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" is that headed "Death by Water," a section that has engendered some argument about its meaning and about whether or not the death of Phlebas is intended to be real or symbolic. The poem uses sound in an interesting way to draw ideas together and to create a musical lilt. In the first line, the repeated "f" sound carries over to the first word of line two, evoking the idea of death, the image of the sea, and a connection between the sea and the financial district seen elsewhere in the poem:

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,

Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell

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