Allusions

Edvard Munch, The Vampire

The two "Chapel Perilous" stanzas contain a number of allusions to images we have already met in the poem, as if Eliot is reminding us of some of the places we have been on our Waste Land journey, before proceeding to the poem's climax in the Thunder's message.


Some examples:

• violet light recalls the violet hour, the evening hour when the typist meets her lover
• beat their wings - recalls the winged Cupidon in Part 2, and the sound of time's wingèd chariot in Part 3
• upside down recalls the Hanged Man of the Tarot pack
• towers recalls the White towers of the Thames, and the fallen cities from Jerusalem to Vienna
• kept the hours is identical to the language used of the bells of St Mary Woolnoth in Part 1.
• voices singing out of empty cisterns recalls  o ces voix d'enfants, the singing of children in Parsifal - but here, there is no joy.
• dry bones recalls the Valley of Dry Bones, and rats' alley.
• The woman with long black hair has links to the modern-day typist, whose relationship with the house agent's clerk is a parody of that of Kundry and Parsifal. 

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