The Correlation Between the Four Fragments in T.S.Eliotâs Preludes
A description of the techniques employed by Eliot to correlate the four fragments of the Preludes.
The [u]Preludes [/u]written in 1910-1911 were composed during Eliot?s first phase of poetry when, revolted by the claustrophobic and pretentious upper class society of Boston Eliot was attracted to the sordid underbelly of the city. He spent many evenings walking through the fogs of North Cambridge and Roxbury. The images incorporated in his mind during these walks have been portrayed in the little vignettes of the [u]Preludes[/u]. Eliot at that time found that the inner world of the Boston upper class society and external world of the slums both had one thing in common - a de-spiritualised and hollow existence. Thus by using different angles of perception in the [u]Preludes[/u] Eliot has tried to portray the spiritual landscape of this godless civilization. [u]Preludes[/u] as the name suggests are inspired by the short piece of classical music, which from being simply an introduction to the main piece of music was transformed into a musical form by composers like Chopin. These musical pieces can be of varying length but have one common goal - to portray a single dominant mood. Similarly each of the four vignettes comprising Eliot?s [u]Preludes[/u] represents a single mood with sensitive lucidity and acute clarity.
[u]Prelude I [/u]has an abrupt beginning which shocks the reader out of his instinctive expectation of a rhythmically, lyrically and metrically correct poem. Eliot begins with a description of a winter evening fog settling itself down like a cat. The scene is contemplated by an unknown observant eye which looks at the street from a passageway reeking of the smell of steaks. The eye continues to look down the street observing the ?gusty shower?, the ?grimy scraps of withered leaves?,? newspapers ?,? vacant lots? and the shower beating incessantly on broken blinds and chimney pots, until the eye is arrested by the image of the lonely cab-horse down the street, steaming and stamping in the rain. Eliot believed that reality is not what it appears to be, thus here he is trying to discover new ways of perceiving reality, one being - the change in the angles of light , which can only be realized during the transitory periods before complete darkness or light. Prelude I takes place at one of those magical hours - 6 o?clock - when everything is half way in shadow and half way in light. The little vignettes of which Prelude I is composed show us the way in which reality is perceived by the working mind. The last line of Prelude I,
" [q]And the lighting of the lamps[/q]" ,
comes after a small gap depicting the break which occurs in the whole scene when light is introduced into the shadowy backdrop. The little moment of magic, bringing out the inner essence of the modern urban landscape is lost.
The whole of Prelude I has only a single reference to a person - ?Your feet? around which the withered leaves gather. Thus the observant eye is given a persona and a narrator is introduced in the poem. It is actually the workings of his mind that we are perceiving. The second Prelude begins in the same scene only the time changes to dawn. The observer is standing in the same passageway which is now filled with the nauseating smell of stale beer. He is looking down the street almost at the same scene except for the introduction of the human element. Eliot says,
" The morning comes to consciousness",
as the people go about their daily mechanical motions. Muddy feet press the sawdust on the street while on their way to the early coffee stands. The reader is then introduced to the memory of the observer as he thinks of the same mechanistic motion performed by a thousand hands, raising ?dingy shades?,
"[q]In a thousand furnished rooms[/q]."
This masquerade of human life which has become a reality for many makes the observer pause and think that life has become a masked dance, a masquerade of dead and hollow people, of bodies without souls, of a mindless mechanistic motion. Thus we have the fragmented and dismembered depiction of people throughout the [u]Preludes[/u]. Eliot has used the same fragmented imagery in [u]The Hollow Men [/u],
" [q]The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley [/q]".
[u]Preludes[/u] III and IV are unexpected as they have no sequence to the previous preludes. [u]Preludes[/u] I and II were objective representations whereas Prelude III is a subjective representation. It is almost as if the observer looking at one of those ? thousand furnished rooms ? lets his consciousness penetrate one of them. There he finds a woman prostitute figure - ?you? - lying supine on her bed, waiting for the night to reveal its ? thousand sordid images?. This woman is an objective correlative of the modern hollowness and sterility and the address is a form of poetic strategy, employed to reveal the moment of intense consciousness of the speaker. These thousand sordid images of the night constitute the woman?s soul and enable her to have a vision of the street, which the street ?hardly understands?. The external reality of the street is thus the representation of the inner consciousness of modern man. This soul or conscience is so spiritually blackened and dead that it is incapable of vision and thus Eliot says,
"[q]You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands[/q]".
But this moment of vision of the woman is also lost ? when all the world came back?. She is reminded of the masculine world outside impinging on to her world every night to satisfy their own sexual appetite and then ?trampling? on, ?assured of certain certainties?. It makes her regress into almost a foetal position,
[q]".....clasped the yellow souls of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands[/q]."
Thus the difference between the woman and the masculine street is that the woman is capable of having visions while the street which is impatient ?to assume the world? is incapable of having them.
Prelude IV again shows a lack of logical dramatic continuity. The reader is confronted by the image of
" [q]His soul stretched tight across the skies[/q]."
There is a sudden introduction of ?his? and it is also mentioned that his soul is trampled by ?insistent feet?. Thus it is an image of intense suffering of a soul stretched tight almost across a torture rack or trampled incessantly by feet that can neither see nor care. From the street the focus of perception then slowly rises and is confronted by the gross gesture of short square fingers stuffing pipes, further up is the newspaper over which the eye of the street is apparent with all its smugness and assurance of ?certain certainties?. If eyes are truly the windows of the soul then these eyes certainly show the blackened conscience of the street. Thus all the external images of the street as depicted in [u]Preludes[/u]
I, II and IV are an internal register of the street?s hollow soul. Thus the soul stretched tight cannot be the street?s, as the eyes of the street show vanity, egotism and smugness but no agony. To regard the soul simply as the woman?s leads to nothing but a semantic wall. Thus it can be understood that the image of the soul is a vision of the narrator, about himself. The narrator feels trampled and encumbered by the burden of existence. This statement can be further substantiated by what follows, as the narrator introduces himself saying,
" [q]I am moved by the fancies that are curled
Around these images.........[/q]".
Thus throughout the [u]Preludes[/u] wherever we have encountered a persona it has been the narrator?s consciousness addressing itself in a process called dedoublement and the voice is the ? first voice of poetry?.
Thus Eliot as the poet is the only one who has seen beyond the masquerade. This knowledge of the reality of life is tormenting his soul so much that ironically even Eliot is,
" [q]Impatient to assume the world[/q]"
so that he can obtain some relief from being the conscience of the world. But relief does not come as Eliot is moved to that faint perception that clings to ?these images? of life - a feeling of the infinite suffering of life. Immediately afterwards Eliot describes another response to this suffering,
" [q]Wipe your hand across your mouth and laugh[/q]".
The reader may make the gross gesture of a satisfied appetite and laugh indifferently at the notion of infinite suffering, as the reader himself is only a mechanical detail in a mechanised universe. He cannot comprehend life in a de-spiritualised world devoid of meaning. Thus Eliot conjures up the final image of withered women ?gathering fuel in vacant lots?, that is, caught up in a mechanical motion out of a necessity for survival. The poem ends with a political stance. Eliot is stating his position and balances his position against another logical one, which might be taken depending on how one responds to life. This brings about the conclusion of the poem. It reiterates the extent to which the structure of this poem is analogical to the structure of the musical piece - the Prelude.
