Wastelands: Part 1

So, this entire first section confuses me. I understand the difference between the speakers and the narrator, I'm just not understanding how they all relate to each other and a wasteland.



The first seven lines make sense because wastelands are dry and barren. In a wasteland, April would be the cruelest month (line 1) because April marks the beginning of spring and usually things grow/grow back in spring. In lines 5-7, winter is sort of described as not necessarily the 'best' month, but definitely a better month than April. Winter is a common symbol for death. A wasteland would prefer winter because it is cold and nothing grows. (And if winter there is anything like winter here, nobody wants to venture outside for very long.)

The first speaker is an older German woman, named Marie, who relives an experience from her youth.

The second speaker is also a woman.

The third speaker, again a woman, is a fortuneteller who is telling someone's fortune/ her own fortune, I'm not really sure.

The fourth speaker/narrator talks about London being like Limbo. They talk about how the people of London walk around without purpose, sort of in a trance, or like a zombie. This last paragraph backs up the idea of death, and death being a central theme in a wasteland, because wastelands don't usually having many living things, and the people of London may as well be dead.





I apologize for the crappiness of this explication but this really all I can come up with. This poem really confuses me, because I don't really know how all of these things tie in together.