Eliot and Cultural Assumptions
A poet often reflects the cultural assumptions of the society to which they belong.
[b]A poet often reflects the cultural assumptions of the society to which they belong. Discuss this with reference to at least two poems and explain how your ideas were challenged or confirmed. [/b]
T. S. Eliot wrote in the age of decadence where his contemporary society was believed to be progressing into the modern world. Eliot sought to challenge these opinions by emphasizing the hopelessness that existed in the post World War I period. His poems ?Hollow Men? and ?The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock? (hereafter ?Prufrock?) challenge his society?s belief by emphasizing the rejection of God, the meaninglessness and paralysis of much of the society?s lives, and also the sense of doom and failure that existed in the time he was writing. Eliot used these ideas to challenge the cultural assumptions that society was at its pinnacle in all facets, his work sharply rejects this and highlights the sordid and meaninglessness of society?s crisis of modernity.
Eliot uses the deification of man in ?Prufrock? to condemn the discourse that society as a whole was religious. Michelangelo the painter of the Sistine Chapel in Rome which glorifies Jesus Christ is placed above Christ by Prufrock. ?Women come and go /talking of Michelangelo? demonstrates that man was worshipping man rather than God in the age of decadence and modernity. Eliot alludes to Jesus as Prufrock ?wept and fasted and wept and prayed? and alludes to John the Baptist?s ?head / brought in upon a platter? and although Prufrock admits he is ?no prophet? to himself it is ?no great matter.? God has been rejected. Eliot?s reference to Lazarus from Dante?s Inferno indicates that seeking knowledge and Lazarus promises to ?tell you all? from his visit to Hell while God does not intend for us to know ?all.? This suggests society?s belief that they can know all without God. This attitude was reflected by other intellectuals in Eliot?s contemporary including Marx, Darwin, Freud, and Nietzsche. This challenged the cultural assumption that God and the church was important in society?s social constructs.
The ?Hollow Men? highlight the spiritual void that did exist in the modern society. The scarecrow appearance with the form of a person but inside is nothing but ?filled with straw.? The spiritual void inside of Eliot?s society was ?stuffed? and was ?hollow?. This was emphasized with the repetion of ?eyes? since the eyes are the windows to the soul. The spiritual void of the soul that existed led to paganism to ?form prayers to broken stone? and the ?stone images? highlighting what society has been reduced to and challenging this. The ?Multifoliate rose? is symbolic of Christ and signifies the last hope society has to fill the spiritual void that haunts them. This is all apart of Dante?s vision which although offering a small hope increases the possibility that reason should overcome religion.
Eliot intended to challenge the meaninglessness and paralysis that existed in his modern world. The ?Hollow Men? detail the ?quiet and meaningless[ness]? existence of modernity. Eliot sums up the pointlessness of existence if it will be as ?wind in dry grass? in this line: ?Shape without form, shade without colour, paralysed force, gesture without motion.? He describes our existence as nothing more than a ?fading star? and offers no hope but through Christ?s ?perpetual star.? Eliot questions the impression left by our existence and if no impression, like ?rat?s feet over broken glass? is left then our lives have been meaningless. By challenging the audience Eliot challenges the cultural assumption that is life is purposeful.
Prufrock?s existence is meaningless and is paralysed and lacks autonomy. Prufrock reduces himself to questioning whether ?Do I dare / Disturb the universe?? and is therefore disabled his ability to create any action even to ?eat a peach?. His pusillanimous nature encourages him to make ?decisions and revisions? which is paralysed in a never ending cycle of thinking which never produces results and is thus useless. This paralysis results in him being ?pinned and wriggling on the wall,? like a lower order insect. His life is so useless that he can ?measure out my life with coffee spoons.? He does want to have an influence upon the world like ?Prince Hamlet? just to be ?an attendant Lord? and to ?swell a progress? such as a minor character as Polonius. Prufrock?s life was pathetic and Eliot believed this to be much the same as that of the modern man.
Eliot uses ?Prufrock? to signify the failure and doom of mankind and the reduced state thus far. Purpose in life is represented by a ?porcelain? dinner set that is so fragile yet so important to having a life or in terms of the dinner set having a party. Prufrock questions whether ?it would have been worthwhile.? The ?bald spot in the middle of my hair? suggests that youth can not be forever and eventually everyone will die. ?Prufrock? engages the audience with their eventual doom with the ?eternal footman hold my coat, and snicker? demonstrating the location of Hell as society?s place in the afterlife. Yet to finish on a sinister note Prufrock identifies the doomed nature of our society that until we are woken ?we are drowned,? highlighting the hopelessness of our existence.
?Hollow men? clearly depicts the doom that society faces as a result of their actions. ?Death?s other kingdom? signifies Hell and eternal suffering associated with Hell from Dante?s Inferno. The purgatory or ?twilight kingdom? is the place of judgement before either heaven or hell, it symbolizes the waiting the internal trauma, only as a result of past actions. Both this afterlife locations are significant in the doomed society as Eliot believes his society will rarely see the ?dream kingdom.? The ideas of the shadows in explored well with the biblical allusion the valley of the shadow of death where there is no hope. In section V of the poem the shadows fall between ?the idea and reality? and many other, it is these shadows that hope is lost for the modern society, but it is this area that the ?shadow falls? that is the most important area of life. The poem ends with no offering of hope just the truth as Eliot perceived: ?This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.?
Most of Eliot?s work reflects the modernistic society which he lived in. It was the urbanisation and industrialization that had just began across most of the world. Without sufficient urban and social planning people were falling between the shadows and society as a whole was not seeing this only seeing the fruit of the progressive society, not the toxins produced. Eliot challenged this discourse in ?Hollow Men? and ?Prufrock? with the pathetic and meaningless figures to be metanymic of society. These two poems are an indictment on his modern society as they represent the doomed and pusillanimous people of his contemporary. These ideas presented are in sharp contrast to cultural assumptions of superiority and perfection that were dominant in Eliot?s time period.
