Journey of the Magi :: Literary Analysis, T.S Eliot

â€Å"Journey of the Magi† is a poem by T.S Eliot extracted from the Ariel poems and published in 1930. It is a dramatic monologue of one of the Magi telling us about his expedition throughout Palestine to find the Christian messiah: Jesus Christ. Through the narrator’s dramatic monologue, Eliot treats the envisioning of reality, usually distorted by the human mind. In the poem, the travelers witness something that changes their reality forever. How does this monologue illustrate the narrator’s envision of his experience traveling through Palestine? In order to analyze the narrator’s perception of his past journey, I will precede with the study of Eliot’s poem by a linear analysis. In his dramatic monologue, Eliot uses vivid understanding of the three Kings journey by the use of imagery. The different use of details guides the reader to use his imagination about a Biblical reference of more than 2,000 years ago. The narrator starts his story by describing the climate challenges encountered: â€Å"A cold coming we had of it.† He uses the diction of winter: â€Å"cold, winter, snow†, combining visual and tactile senses for the reader to experience the difficulties faced by the three wise men. The narrator is generally very negative about what he encounters during his trip. He uses pejorative vocabulary in order describes the season: â€Å"Just the worst time of the year†. (v.2) â€Å"deep and sharp weather† (v.4) â€Å"the very dead of winter† (v.5). Not only the Three Kings seem to be tired and upset about their adventure, but their camels as well. They were â€Å"lying down in the melting snow† (v.7) â€Å"galled, sore -footed and refractory†. The role of this enumeration is to insist on the animal’s physical fatigue and also to show that both human and animals were affected by the weather conditions. In the second half of the first stanza, the narrator describes summer in the different cities he and the other kings traveled. By taking track of the seasons, the Magi inform the reader about the length of his Palestine journey. The transition from winter to summer setting is smoothly made by the verse: â€Å"There were times we regretted.† (v.8), which exemplifies the Magi’s envision of his experience. The challenges of the trip were so great and unexpected that most of the times tempted the three Kings to give up on their mission in finding the Messiah. The Magi depicts palaces, terraces, sherbet (a central Asia’s sorbet) and silken girls to help the reader visualize the places he passed by.