Eliot challenges his audience to see the province of his character’s subconscious life within a corrupted society. Thomas Stearns Eliot’s poems. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock published in 1915. and Preludes published in 1917. resonate the decay and disaffection of Eliot’s characters and civilisation. Eliot employs assorted poetic techniques to dispute the reader to research societal atomization of the human mind and the futility of an industrialisation society.
Eliot explores privacy and societal atomization through the experiences of the character in his verse form. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The signifier of the verse form is fragmented. incorporating an unequal figure of lines with variable address beat foregrounding the confusion and anxiousness of Prufrock due to his societal isolation. Eliot incorporates assorted poetic signifiers including elements of sonnet. iambic pentameter and medley. The riming strategy in the verse form is invariably altering implementing a confused flow of beat and tone to the verse form. reflecting atomization as the persona’s ideas spontaneously shift from one emotion to another. Eliot’s usage of catachresis in the line. “Let us travel so. you and I. when the eventide is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table” juxtaposes the beauty normally associated with the dark sky with numbness and decay of a comatose patient.
The contrasting images denote atomization as it demonstrates Prufrock’s disordered psychological province. as he can non conform with society. therefore doing him to be an castaway. Eliot applies synecdoche in the line. “to fix a face to run into the faces you meet” to represent Prufrock’s withdrawal from society as he is a broken individuality. Eliot decontextualizes parts of the organic structure instead than stand foring people as a whole individuality. bespeaking societal atomization in which worlds are ‘parts’ that constitute society. The metaphor in the line. “When I am pinned and writhing on the wall” refers to the pinning of insect samples for survey. connoting that the character feels similarly scrutinized by society. Prufrock’s purdah is revealed as he is depicted as being pinned by societal properness. foregrounding the battle to move in conformity with societal outlooks doing him to be a fragment on the boundary lines of society. Eliot explores the terrible experiences of Prufrock in order to bring on the reader to see the deeper feelings of the character.
Similarly. Eliot’s poem Preludes provides the reader an penetration into the atomization of the human mind. The construction of the verse form is divided into four separate cantos that depict different scenes at different times of the twenty-four hours. The irregular rhyming strategy and the enjambement layout presents the persona’s withdrawal and marginalization as the character’s position differs. The tone of the character is invariably altering through each scene. The first canto begins with a relaxed tone where sibilance and olfactive imagination is employed in “smells of steaks” to mean gradualness and gloom of the character. However. the comforting tone is rapidly juxtaposed with the aggressive. distant tone of the character in the 2nd stanza through the usage of plosive initial rhyme of ‘broken blinds’ . which imitates the strong. thumping noise of an object falling to pieces.
The utmost alterations of the tone of the character displays his broken individuality as he strives to happen alleviation in his alone. metropolis life. The 4th canto represents the battle of the character to conserve his spirit and individualism as they are opposed by modern society symbolised by the “blackened street” . The persona’s battle with conforming to modern society is depicted through negative imagination and personification in the line “…soul stretched tight across the skies” implying that the character is stressed because society is coercing him to lose his personal beliefs and ethical motives in order to be socially acceptable. Eliot employs synecdoche in “insistent feet” which displays worlds as uncomplete and fragmented as their lives embody modern society. As proved above. Eliot successfully depicts the experiences of his characters. which challenges the audience to understand the disconnected mind of worlds.
Furthermore. Eliot dares the reader to dig into the ailments of the modern universe caused by the industrial revolution in his verse form. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The ocular imagination of the “half-deserted streets” . “cheap hotels” and “sawdust restaurants” show how industry has pervaded every corner of human life. The descriptive linguistic communication and glooming tone negatively connotes the isolation of modern metropoliss as humanity becomes secluded and empty. The application of metaphor and cat imagination in “the xanthous fog… rubs its dorsum upon the window panes” portrays the modern metropolis as suppression and claustrophobic and the coloring material symbolism implies decease and decay. as modern life grows futile.
The descriptive linguistic communication provides the reader with an penetration of how Prufrock views the universe he lives in and how society has become wastes and corrupted. The absurd imagination and metaphor evident in “I have measured out my life in java spoons” high spots how Prufrock lives his life in little. measured sums. The spoons are a direct nexus to mechanisation and mass production that highlight the unrealized. mundane modern universe. where everything is a transcript of another and individualism is unseemly. The repeat of the line “women semen and travel speaking of Michelangelo” suggests that the modern universe is nonmeaningful and humdrum as society is concerned with fiddling and dull thoughts. Through assorted poetic techniques. Eliot provokes the audience to measure the corruptness of society due to industrialization.
Eliot comparably reveals to the reader the bare nature of society in his verse form. Preludes. The negative imagination of decay and devolution demonstrated in “grimy scraps” and “withered leaves” . uncover a corrupted society together with the plosive initial rhyme reenforcing the devastation within a community. Society is depicted as hollow and purposeless evident in the metaphor “The burned-out terminals of smoky days” which symbolises human life as coffin nails ; easy deteriorating and fouling the universe. The terminals of coffin nails are finally discarded. as it becomes useless proposing that life is impermanent and empty. The apposition of the eccentric imagination in the line. “The forenoon comes to consciousness” implies lethargy and somberness as modern metropoliss become overwhelmed with modus operandis and fiddling activities. The personification indicates that even the Sun does non desire to look in the drab modern universe to function as a beginning of life and energy. The deformed images in “And you heard the sparrows in the gutter” likewise demote the beauty of nature proposing that society is unpleasant and unreal as it conceals nature behind the industrialisation of modern metropoliss. In his verse form. Eliot encourages the reader to look into the jobs of society through assorted literary devices.
Ultimately. Eliot invites his readers to research the experiences of his characters every bit good as the jobs of society in order for the audience to re-examine their personal attitudes and ideals. Eliot skillfully communicates to his readers through complex poetic devices such as. imagination. catachresis and symbolism.
