Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This chapter examines how T. S. Eliot’s characteristic themes of separation and death reflect his early experiences under Jim Crow in the segregated city of St. Louis, 1888–1905. “Ash-Wednesday” (1930) and “The Dry Salvages” (1941) specifically confront us with racially marked images of death in autobiographical contexts connected to his childhood. Placing his poems, letters, and prose writings in the context of the city’s history reveals the poet’s consciousness of wrongs committed against the Black people of his hometown and native land. While “Ash-Wednesday” partially suppresses the poet’s memories of racial separation and Black mortality, Eliot opens himself to greater accountability in “The Dry Salvages,” whose opening evocation of a “strong brown god” may have been inspired by the figure of Paul Robeson. The poem’s image of Black bodies floating in the Mississippi, recalled from his childhood, symbolizes the suffering of others and the guilt of bystanders.</jats:p>