Eliot’s use of fragmentation is a device that he uses to capture the waking and dreaming surrealism of trench warfare. There’s no linear narrative in the poem at all. Instead, Eliot captures moments that could last for one or two lines or several. From part I lines 1-11 he continues in the same narrative of the seasons within the trenches, but then at line 12 (a line entirely in German) his poetry turns. He follows the turn with lines about a childhood memory that is clearly a recollection of a member of the ruling class. He writes:

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.

And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,

My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,

And I was frightened. He said, Marie,

Marie, hold on tight. And down we went, [lines 12 – 16].

After this break of linear narration, Eliot explains to readers that he is only offering “broken images” (line 22). He follows the broken, fragmented images throughout Parts I and II.

           In part II one of the clearest image breaks among the many examples occurs on line 139. The previous lines are a conversation between two people. At line 139 the conversational tone changes to a conversation between two people, but it is between two other people. The footnotes of the poem demonstrate that this was true of the poem.

           Eliot’s way of mixing fragmented images resemble a jumble of life experiences, both real or imagined, set against a background of surreal and contrasting landscapes. Eliot writes, “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” (line 30), “under the firelight, under the brush, her hair // spread our in fiery points” (108-109) and other intense irrational images. The fragmented surrealistic nature of the poem captures the assault on the mind when in the trenches and faced with the wasteland.