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Ceremonies are prevalent throughout T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land". Eliot relies on literary contrasts to illustrate the specific values of meaningful, effectual rituals of primitive society in contrast to the meaningless, broken, sham ....

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... imagery of a primal ceremony is evident in this passage. The last line of "He who was living is now dead" shows the passing of the primal ceremony; the connection to it that was once viable is now dead. The language used to describe the event is very rich and vivid: red, sweaty, stony. These words evoke an event that is without the cares of modern life- it is primal and hot. A couple of lines later Eliot talks of "red sullen faces sneer and snarl/ From doors of mudcracked houses" (ll. 344-345). These lines too seem to contain language that has a primal quality to it. From the primal roots of ceremony Eliot shows us the c ...