This is one of my favorite poems:
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.
It is an excerpt out of T.S. Elliot's poem The Waste Land. It is about a little girl named Marie. On the surface it seems pretty straight forward. However, some bits of seem so profound, as if he was trying to slip something entirely ineffable into his work. Leaving a pearl jewel of a prize waiting for those who look deeply enough to find it. I love this bit and I have spent many hours trying to fathom its meaning. Here is what I have come up with: The man in the poem is facing east. Thus, in the morning, his shadow strides behind him, and as the day goes on the sun sets in the west, casting a shadow that rises to meet him. This raises a few questions: 1) He is standing there facing the east all day, while the sun makes its way across the sky. Why? What is he looking at? What is he contemplating? 2) What is “fear in a handful of dust”? Is it some reference to the biblical account of man being formed from the dust? Perhaps this “fear” alludes to the constant human fear of death and how we are perpetually trying to escape it. Which brings us to: 3) What troubles this man so, that he is standing here, all day contemplating his own mortality? Or is this single “day” actually symbolic of the course of our lives? Does this man represent all of us? Possibly. I believe he is each of us, facing the dawn and dusk of our lives, participating in the constant struggle to stave off death for just a day longer. He has become, as we all will, intimately familiar with the ultimate “fear in a handful of dust”.
Fear in a Handful of Dust. T.S. Elliot's The Wasteland (pt 1)
By SarahAF - Posted on November 8th, 2008
Well, i do not know why you didn't intrepret that the being was looking towards the west instead of east. "striding behind" Indicates that he was not facing the direction the sun was raising. Therefore he mets the sunset in the west.
So this indicates that he is looking west the entire time.
Actually, that is an incorrect asessment. "Your shadow at morning striding behind you" means that in the morning he was facing the sun, such that it cast a shadow which strode behind him. The sun rises in the east. ergo, he was facing east. "Your shadow at evening rising to meet you", indicates that in the evening the sun was behind him, casting a shadow in the ditection he was facing, thus "rising to meet" him. Ergo, since the sun sets in the west and he's facing AWAY from the sun, he is facing east. Please do not tell me i am wrong about my article until you have thoroughly check your facts.
I wasn't telling you that you were wrong!!! i didn't understand why you thought he was facing east. Obviously this clearifies it.
What troubles this man is the cyclical repetition of the state of paralysis. Under the shadow of this red rock is the transformation: the turning of a feeling into dust - the turning of something material into a form of revelation. I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Just as the Gods created Humans from stones. The creation of something which disrupts the repetition of ordinary days in a dried waste land.