The Waste Land: Part III

Part III of The Waste Land opens describing a river that is "broken." Water is pure, and usually rivers each have a God that watches over it and protects it. The river described here does't. The color brown is brought up a lot. The land is browned by the polluted air, and by the cardboard boxes and cigarette ends. The first stanza ends with, "But at my back in a cold blast I hear the rattle of the bones, and the chuckle spread from ear to ear." To me, this is the first time in the poem where death is not thought of as a good thing. This is an evil death. It is a cold blast and it follows him from ear to ear.
The second stanza is where the river is really described. In this Godless river, evil lurks. There is a rat dragging it's belly along the bank, on a winter evening behind a gashouse burning dirty, dirty coal. There are white, dead bodies, and bones. And for some reason, the speaker is fishing here.
"Twit twit twit Jug jug jug jug jug jug So rudely forc'd. Tereu" This is reference to the Nightingale Song, which connects this part of the poem to the previous one. Whenever this song comes up, there is some kind of sexual abuse. So rudely forc'd is proof of this.
Stanza number four is about the "Unreal City" which we notice as London. Brown comes up again, representing a dirty, erie feeling "on a winter noon". Winter being death, noon being the height of the sun/day. This is the height of evil. So it is no coincidence the one eyed merchant comes up again. He relates back to the previous section as well.
The speaker now, Tiresias, is strange. He is and old man, with female breasts...hmm...Anyways, he is kind of watching this sailor come home from sea, and settle in at her home. He sees there is another man there who sexually explores her with no resistance. This woman is asleep, or even drugged and getting raped. Then he just walks away like nothing happened and creeps up the "stairs unlit" like he's done it many times. This is an example of a failed relationship. The man only wants the joy of sex, rather than the commitment of two becoming one. This ongoing theme of failed relationships symbolizes the failed relationships between countries, and the separation of Pangea. Thus, resulting in WWI and WWII.
The next four stanzas all reinforce the idea of women being stuck in a failed relationship, and therefore cannot live life to the fullest. They are spiritually dead. The woman who got date-raped wakes up looks in the mirror "hardly aware of her departed lover" and thinks only one thought, "Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over" She knows something happened and she is okay with it? She doesn't want to loose him. She has something to prove to others it seems like and staying with this guy seems to be the way to do it. It all relates to Queen Elizabeth. She will not find herself a lover because then, they would take some of her power, therefore she cannot live life to the fullest and is spiritually dead! Queen Elizabeth stands for London, and she knows she has a reputation to uphold, so she takes it, just like the date-rape girl. :(
The end of part iii sets up part iv, which seems to be the climax. The word burning is said over and over again. The burning occurs in London, probably alluding to the Great Fire of London in 1616. They didn't have enough water to put out the huge fire...