The Wasteland PDF

# Summary: An unnamed protagonist, a man, gets off a bus and sees a group of young men waiting under a tree in the darkness. He is afraid he wishes he could run after the bus but it is too late. He is instantly filled with terror. He has his wages for the week in his purse and knows that the men in...

# Summary: An unnamed protagonist, a man, gets off a bus and sees a group of young men waiting under a tree in the darkness. He is afraid he wishes he could run after the bus but it is too late. He is instantly filled with terror. He has his wages for the week in his purse and knows that the men intend to rob him. However, he is also very afraid that they will kill him. Thinking to himself that young men like this do not know the meaning of mercy, he worries that his wife will be made a widow and his children will be made orphans. The protagonist hears the men as they begin walking towards him, including some who approach from the opposite side. They do not speak, but the protagonist is sure of their intentions. On the other side of the road is a waste land filled with "wire and iron and the bodies of old cars," and the protagonist decides that fleeing into the waste land offers him the best chance of survival. With a burst of strength, he runs in that direction, swinging his heavy stick as he hears the young men speaking to each other. As he plunges into the waste land, bits of scrap iron clutch at his leg, terrifying him further until he is sobbing. He falls into a trap of barbed wire and begins to cry out weakly for help as he struggles. Eventually, he manages to free himself from the barbed wire, although his hands and face are torn in the process. Emerging back onto the road, he sees the bus beginning to return, and calls out again for help. In the bus's lights, however, he sees the form of one of the young men coming towards him. Feeling that his death is near, the protagonist thinks how unjust it is that someone who has always abided by the law and worked hard, such as himself, should be targeted like this. In anger, he strikes the approaching young man hard on the head with his stick, sending him reeling down to the ground. The young man makes a groaning noise, as if to suggest that his own life, too, has treated him unjustly. The protagonist then turns and starts to run, but he does not notice the large shape of an old truck and runs directly into it, knocking himself to the ground. He is stunned by the impact, but after a moment, he recovers enough to turn over and hide himself under the truck. His heart is pounding furiously and he tries to calm his breath so that the young men, approaching, will not hear him. From under the truck, he sees two of the young men coming closer. One tells the other he had heard a man running on the road, and they decide the protagonist must have gotten away. Then another young man arrives and tells "Freddy" that his "father" has escaped. There is no reply, and the group begins to realize that Freddy is not among them. They begin calling out for him. Then one of the young men encounters the fallen man. In the dark, he thinks it is the protagonist whom they have been pursuing - until he realizes there is no purse of money on the body. After lighting a match to see better, he announces that the body belongs to Freddy and that he is dead. Still in his hiding spot, the protagonist feels the thud of Freddy's body against his when the young men lift it and swing it under the truck to hide it. They then turn away and leave. The protagonist buries his face in his arms and says to himself in his own language, "People, arise! The world is dead." He then gets up and starts to walk away, leaving the waste land and his son's body behind. # Themes: - **Fear:** The protagonist's fear dominates this short story, driving him to act in ways he normally would not and creating a tense, suspense-filled atmosphere. - **Social Breakdown:** Mirroring apartheid-era South Africa, this story depicts a dysfunctional society in which the social bonds between family, friends, and strangers have been corrupted. - **Poverty and Violence:** Desperation turns to violence as the normally law-abiding protagonist attempts to escape the men who would hurt him to steal his hard-earned wages. ## Poverty and Violence Very early in the story, the protagonist thinks about a purse filled with wages that he is carrying against his thigh, aware that being in the possession of any amount of money makes him vulnerable. Because he lives in poverty, this money is very important to him, but because the criminal gang also lives in poverty, the money is important to them as well. Money and the lack of it is presumably what drives the criminal gang to violence, and it is likely the fear of this violence that causes the protagonist to carry a heavy stick with him when he is walking home with his wages. The characters' respective actions suggest that extreme poverty can create a desperate environment where violence is not only possible, but even expected. The protagonist worries that the criminal gang will not be inclined to show "mercy," yet in his rage at the injustice of the situation, it is ultimately the protagonist himself who shows no mercy. His poverty, and his experience of living in poverty, seem to have left the protagonist hardened, and when he discovers that he has killed his own son at the end of the story, the protagonist does not break down. Instead, after a moment's pause, he simply stands up and leaves the waste land and his son's body behind, suggesting that this sort of tragedy is simply a part of life here. ## Fear "The Waste Land" is a story which pulses with fear. From the moment he leaves the safety of the well-lit bus, the protagonist is afraid of what he will find in the darkness, and his gut-deep anxiety when he spies a group of young men waiting for him is conveyed very effectively to the reader. When the protagonist flees into the waste land, his fear becomes even more visceral. As his heart pounds and his breath shortens, it seems that he is afraid not only of the gang itself, but of the dark waste land and what it represents. On one hand, the waste land appears to the protagonist as his only option for escape - and in that sense, it serves as a source of refuge. However, the waste land is also terrifying to the protagonist, filled with twists and turns and dark, looming shapes. The protagonist's fear of the waste land is so intense that, at times, he forgets himself - as when he becomes entangled in barbed wire and shouts irrationally for help, though this might draw his pursuers directly to him. While the waste land is the backdrop for much of the action of the story, it also seems to represent something darker, a place where normal morality, logic, and behavior are subverted by fear and the desire to survive. Fear ultimately drives the behavior of the protagonist just as much as poverty does. ## "The Waste Land" Characters - The protagonist is an unnamed, working-class man who finds himself set upon by a gang of young men. In struggling to defend himself, he kills one of his pursuers, who is later revealed to be his son. - Freddy, a member of the gang, is the only named character in the story and the son of the protagonist. Neither his father nor the other members of the gang spend much time lingering over Freddy's death, emphasizing the callous and harsh environment in which the characters live.