A Journey Of Faith
The Journey of the Magi by Thomas Stearns Eliot centers around one of three wise men who are travelling to a distant place. And the poem is in the form of a monologue from one of the wise men’s prospective. The poem has many different hidden meanings but they are all really based around a common theme of faith, more specifically Christianity.
The poet ,T.S. Elioit ,lived from 1888 – 1965 and he himself has converted to Christianity so that is why a common interpretation of the poem is that Elliot wrote about his experiences in converting to Christianity and put them into the context and mind frame of one of the Magi. The proof of this is rather hidden in the symbolic meanings behind all the experiences in the journey. T.S. Eliot creates the tone and theme of great difficulty and struggle through the use of vivid imagery.
The First evidence of struggle is that the journey is a very harsh one. This is shown at the very beginning, were the wise man describes the overall outlook on their journey, which is long and hard, not to mention the horrible weather conditions. This could be known from the poem, “Just the worst time of the year for a journey, and such a long journey”. “The way deep and the weather sharp, the very dead of winter”.
He first describes where he is at the present moment and then where he would rather be, “the summer palaces on slopes, the terraces, and the silken girls bringing sherbet”. This is exemplified in T.S. Eliot’s explanation of the poem. The “sharp contrasts between the Magi's travels with its discomfort "the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory" in wintry weather ("the melting snow") and of life in their homeland, associated with decadent luxury ("silken girls bringing sherbet") in "summer palaces" .Since the magi have such a pleasant home, it makes one wonder why they would embarking on a long and tedious journey. So there is obviously a great deal of devotion and struggle just like if someone is converting to a new religion....
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