1. Voice lesson: figurative Language #5

2. Voice Lesson: Fig. Lang. #5 Consider and Discuss
A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on these strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings And crawled head downward down a blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
-- T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”
Paraphrase the image of the first two lines. What mood does the image create? Circle the images that create that mood.
List the auditory images in these lines. How do these images help create the mood of the passage?
Possible – A woman pulled her long black hair out to the side and held it taut. Then she plucked at her hair in such a way as to make a whispering sound. The image creates a mood of eerie strangeness.
The auditory images include:
A woman…fiddled whisper music on those strings – She FIDDLES on her hair, and the sound she makes is barely audible.
Bats…whistled and beat their wings, - bats WHISTLE and BEAT their wings without melody or harmony
Towers tolling reminiscent bells – evokes the past only (REMINISCENT) and offers no hope for the future
Voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells - voices come from EMPTY cisterns and DRY wells
The images help create the mood of the passage by reinforcing and intensifying the mood of eerie strangeness and desolation. None of the sounds are harmonious or uplifting. These images offer no hope; only decay, dissipation, and futility.