Module B Essay – T.S Eliot

Resource Description

Eliot

(939 words)

The quest for understanding and enlightenment is futile within the constraints of empty societal constructs. T.S Eliot’s oeuvre of poems depicts the tension between the vacuity of modern European society and the universal journey for self-discovery, fabricating a canonical piece that is inherently laced with textual integrity. Eliot exposes the detriments of modernism on the psyche in ‘The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock’ (1910), ‘The Hollow Men’ (1925) and ‘The Journey of the Magi’ (1927), as his synthesis of form, content and rhetoric subtly reflects his own search for identity. Written during an era of disintegrating forces that fragment the conventions of romanticism, Eliot captures the despair of early modernist society in his critical portrayal of societal constructs. Sustained throughout Eliot’s corpus is the struggle to escape the pervasiveness of monotony with the culmination of Eliot’s quest in ‘Magi’ exposing the ultimate truth that religion cannot sufficiently fulfill the vacuum of meaning society has torn. Hence, Eliot forges a timeless body of literature in his representation of society as an everlasting obstacle in the pursuit of personal meaning.

Societal constructs impose a blanket of triviality that suffocates the potential for enlightenment. The dramatic monologue ‘The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ upholds textual integrity through its lasting depiction of the impact of shifting social contexts on the psyche. Modernism saw a rejection of religious guidance, with the collapse of spiritual affirmation increasing individuals’ desire for social validation. The conflict between tradition and change, as romanticism moved to modernism, is epitomized in the intertextual epigraph, as Eliot draws on the classic Dante’s Inferno (1476) to employ an objective correlative between the narcissism of Guido and the titular Prufrock. The extended allusion to the epigraph echoed in Prufrock’s obsession with his image confirms that the motif of an ‘overwhelming question’ is centered upon embracing introspection. The parenthetical insertion ‘(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)’, structurally interrupts the stanza, symbolising the disruptive nature of self-consciousness in achieving self-discovery. The stultifying effect of a spiritual vacuum is captured in the conduplicatio; “Prepare a face to meet the faces” with the repetition expressing the monotonous cycle of urban life. Prufrock ultimately avoids the ‘overwhelming question,’ instead escaping his journey to self-discovery by preoccupying himself with trivial facades noted in the rhetorical question; “Shall I part my hair behind?’ The poem’s canonical status is invoked through Eliot’s exploration of the universal tension between the imperative yet confronting nature of introspection, exposing the complex quest for meaning in the modern world.

The powerful omnipresence of societal constructs limit self-actuated enlightenment. Eliot’s revolutionary piece ‘The Hollow Men’, employs a free-verse form to reflectively encapsulate his profound realisation that modern society is a formation of purposeless facades. Written months after a psychotic breakdown, the paradoxical anaphora; “We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men,” symbolically portrays Eliot’s acknowledgement of the modern man’s inability to connect with new constructs that ‘stuff’ us with false meaning. While Eliot embodies pessimistic naturalism, theorist David Buckley argues that the subtly threaded biblical allusions, noted in “fading star”, displays Eliot and the hollowmen’s quest for unified meaning. The dichotomies that plague Eliot’s context, with the challenge of Romanticism and Modernism, Religion and Naturalism, solipsism and omniscience, coalesce a paradoxical narrative in ‘The Hollowmen’ as Eliot ridicules societal constructs only to entertain the notion of religion. The ellipsis in; ‘For Thine is; Life is; For Thine is the…” insinuates a tone of contemplation, as the direct repetition connecting ‘Life’ to the religious ‘Thine’ combines literary elements to imply the promising prospect of faith in achieving a cathartic awakening. The dialectic layers evoke a sense of confusion that mirrors Eliot’s personal identity crisis, maintaining textual integrity while expressing the premise that humans are inescapably surrounded by cycles of tedium. Thus, ‘The Hollow Men’ canonically portrays the premise that the modern man will no longer search within but search throughout societal constructs for meaning.

While religion is classically displayed as the key to self-discovery, societal constructs prevail as an obstacle in the path of spiritual fulfillment. ‘Journey of the Magi’ captures Eliot’s spiritual awakening as he grapples with his religious conversion. The restrictive facades of society exemplified in ‘Prufrock’ and ‘The Hollowmen’ are reflected in the declarative; ‘We regretted the summer palaces on slopes.’ The Romantic tone created by the sibilance is contrasted by the connotations of ‘regret’, where Eliot concludes to separate himself from societal constructs such as these ‘palaces’ to reach true meaning. However, Eliot’s portrayal of Jesus’s epiphanic birth is satirized through the use of low modality and flippant tone; ‘it was (you might say) satisfactory,’ revealing the judgement that religion offers little consolation. In fact, at the culmination of the poem, the Magi must return to society, ‘but [are] no longer at ease ,’ representative of Eliot’s despondency with the modern world’s obsession with logicality and technology at the expense of higher cultural and spiritual meaning. The truncated final line; ‘I should be glad of another death,’ exerts a sense of hopelessness espousing Eliot’s ultimate loss of confidence in the quest for self-discovery

Within the modern world self-discovery is futile. Eliot’s collection of poems expose the tediums and detriments of the new world that has shifted from the comforts of romanticism. The desire for identity and spiritual awakening is hindered by the masks individuals and society create to evoke a sense of false meaning. ‘The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and ‘The Hollow-men’ display the impacts of society on individual enlightenment whilst ‘The Journey of the Magi’ cynically rejects religion as a final answer. Eliot’s dark analysis of self-discovery amplified by his personal ennui, insinuates the emptiness of humanity’s societal and religious constructs, maintaining a canonical status and textual integrity.