This poem, as I said, is an addendum (or add-on) to "The Wasteland." You'll note that this poem has a childish rhyming quality to it, much like a nursery rhyme. It also uses repetition to further this idea. What is being repeated, however, is the religious allusions we talked about earlier. Consider part V of this poem. "For Thine is the Kingdom" weaves through the words. This is, of course, an allusion to a Christian hymn. It references the great power of redemption and Christian belief in rebirth. It's about life after death and being "saved." It is a call to the eternal power of God over the momentary life of man.
Yet, following this repetitious use of this idea, Eliot calls attention to the astounding and resonating lack of "men." He says "Between the conception/And the creation/Between the emotion/And the response/Falls the Shadow." Eliot suggests a lack here. Is it that men are incapable of making that leap between the human and the everlasting? Finally, Eliot finishes the poem by telling us that "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but with a whimper." He repeats "This is the way the world end" three times, imitating, again, a nursery rhyme. It echoes "London Bridge is Falling Down."
Eliot's use of redemptive imagery is used specifically in connection with the end of the world. Using what you know, and any of the lines below, what would you interpret Eliot's final message about the modern world, men, and hope to be?
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a whimper.