Semiotic analysis on T.S. Eliot's the Waste Land / by Muzakki Afifuddin

In literary communication, especially poetry, author communicates what he means through certain symbols which mostly are not easy to interpret. The problem mostly occurs in the classes of poetry interpretation. The theory that will help the students and teachers to cope the problem is the theory of semiotics. The students need the theory of semiotics to be able to give explanation about their thought. They need the theory of semiotics also to understand the references of the symbols, the author, the message, and themselves as readers. Thus, the importance of understanding semiotics and the way it works in analyzing poetic symbols in literature especially poetry becomes the focus of this study. The researcher believes that the study of semiotics will help him, other literature teachers, students, and readers to cope with the problem of subjectivity and lack of reasons in interpretation. By using poetry as the object of the study, he believes that he will be able to apply the theory of semiotics to other genres better. By understanding semiotics, the researcher believes that he will be able to share the knowledge with others and teach poetry in a better platform. The researcher uses one of T.S. EliotOCOs poems, The Waste Land as a representative of the poetry genre. The researcher sees that T.S. Eliot represents the modern poets. The poem is one of the poems that use poetic symbols as a system of signs. The poem itself is also an entity built on significations of conventional symbols. The poetic symbols used in the poem are the archetype of mythologies, legends, religions, other genres of literary texts, and the works of other authors. However, the juxtaposed symbols of the poem also develop into multi-meaning, incidental, and private symbols. The researcher believes that semiotics will help him to reveal the use of the symbols in the point of view of the forms and the functions. Through the research, the researcher analyzes the way semiotics works in the symbol analysis of the poem. The researcher analyzes the system of signs in the poem, which is built on the referential relationship among each symbol internally and between symbols and their convention. Then, the researcher analyzes the characteristics of the symbols in terms of iconicity, indixecality, and symbolism, and at the same time, interprets the meaning of the symbol intertextually and juxtapositionally. Then, the researcher searches for some strategies to interpret the message of the poem. The result of the research is that the poemOCOs system of sign is the use of juxtapositional and intertextual relationship by understanding the characters of iconicity, indexicality, and symbolism of the poetic symbols. The poem is built on the combination of symbols and develops new symbols that support the main theme of emptiness of life and the initiation for a better life.