The poem 'Journey of the Magi' dramastises a spiritual quest. Eliot successfully uses the framework of a Biblical incident, according to which the three wise men from the East led by a new star, reached Bethlehem to have glimpse of the infant Jesus. The journey of the Magi indicates a state of transition, the change from spiritual emptiness to a kind of spiritual awakening. The agony and the ecstasy of this transformation are communicated by one of the Magi and we are made to live through the experience. Moreover, Eliot successfully employs images and situations which are at the same time personal, concrete, particular and also symbolic, universal, and spiritual. Through a series of arresting pictures, Eliot brings home to us the difficult journey undertaken by the Magi through the desert, their descent into a valley of vegetation and the consequences of their conversion to the new faith.
The Magi had to undergo severe hardships all along their long journey. It was the 'very dead of winter' and the ways were deep and the weather was sharp. Even the camels felt the strain of the journey as they were 'galled and sore-footed' and became unmanageable. The camel men grumbled and some of them even ran away. The wise men themselves regretted for having left their summer palaces on hill sides where girls in silk served sherbet. Eliot is careful in maintaining the oriental atmosphere. At times the night-fires burnt out, exposing them to the extreme cold. Often they remained shelter less and this worsened their condition. The people in both cities and towns on the route were unfriendly and the villagers exploited them. At last they preferred to travel all night in order to keep themselves warm. More hard to endure perhaps was their fear about the outcome of their quest. They doubted the wisdom of undertaking such a long journey and under such extreme conditions, especially when they themselves were uncertain about the success of their mission.
The narrator now recollects how at dawn they at length reached the temperature valley with sings of water and vegetation. It was a welcome relief to them after their journey through the arid desert. They also saw three trees at a distance and an old white horse galloping away in the meadow. They came to an inn an old white horse ruffians playing the game of dice and kicking the empty wine-skins. Even through all these images are familiar and concrete, often mixed with the personal memories of the poet, they also at the same time have religious and spiritual connotations. The dawn, the running stream, the white horse, the water-mill are all suggestive of the emerging new faith. The three trees and the six ruffians playing dice in an inn bring to our mind the betrayal of Christ and His crucifixion. The Birth of Christ is juxtaposed here with his Death and this contrast reinforces the Birth-Death theme of the poem. The old faith from which they sought an escape was also symbolically represented in the picture of the inn, with its drinking, dicing and 'kicking the empty wine-skins'. Obviously, the old faith was worldly, given to sensuous pleasures and devoid of spiritual content. At long last and just in time, they reached the place and saw Jesus. They were not fully satisfied.
The third section reveals to us what it was to have a new faith. The Birth of a new faith, they realized to their dismay and agony, involved the death of the old faith. The Magi suffered a spiritual crisis in breaking away from the old to embrace the new. The new faith with its Mercy, Pity and Love meant giving up of the individual self. Moreover, when they returned to their kingdoms they found their own people aliens as they continued to cling to their old values and beliefs. Since they were witnesses, to the birth of Jesus, they were converted to the new faith. But they needed 'one more death', or a second spiritual transformation, to make their conversion complete.
The poem represents an important transitional stage in Eliot's own spiritual growth. His 'Waste Land' represented a mood of despair. Since then, Eliot steadily moved towards the Church of England and in 1927 joined it. His conversion was not complete and there was disquiet and restlessness in his soul. 'Journey of the Magi', written in the year of his conversion, dramatizes this agony of his soul. With 'Ash Wednesday' written in 1930 Eliot's spiritual transformation became complete. The poem also exemplifies Eliot's condensed and elliptical style.
