Adversity In The Second Coming Essay

969 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effects of disaster in society

In his poem, “The Second Coming”, William Yeats demonstrates the idea adversity plays a heavy role in influencing an individual’s identity. “The Second Coming” develops the idea that an individual’s identity will be affected negatively when faced with adversity. In other words, when the speaker realizes that the world around him is in ruins, he beings believe that it cannot be saved. Firstly, due to the first world war, many tragic scenes are witnessed such as the lives of innocent people being lost which causes the speaker to believe that the same event will happen in the future. Secondly, although the speaker possesses a small hope that things will change for the better, he cannot help but envision more terrible images such as vultures waiting …show more content…

Similar to the speaker, I have also believed that only the worst possible outcome is possible in the future due to the adverse effect that a car accident had on me. Although I had completed many driving lessons with an instructor, I believed that the same fate was bound to happen again if I drove. Due to this fear, I have developed a fear of driving as well as a fear for the spot where we were hit. Although the chances of the same fate happening again are slim, the worry of being hit again still resides in my mind, causing my heart to race when driving or passing the location of the accident. The adversity caused by the other driver hitting our car was so significant, that my identity as an individual has been tainted with fear due to the fact that when faced with adversity, an individual’s identity will be affected negatively. If the other driver hadn’t gotten out of their car and possessed “A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun” ( l. 15), then the adverse effects left on my mind wouldn’t be as dire due to the fact that she had no sense of remorse for being at fault for the accident. However, due to her lack of regret and the adversity she caused, my identity as an individual has been and still is infected with fear and

Show More
Related

  • The Awakening Essay

    908 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout history and literature women are often referred to as birds, especially those of domesticated species. Women being referred to as a pet corresponded to the rise of patriarchal society, “… from this point, civilization has seemed to trap women in stereotypes related to nature which are domesticated, like caged birds” (Clark 342). Women had to fit into the roles society formed for them, trapping them in a lifestyle not appealing to all women. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin uses avian symbolism to emphasize Edna’s entrapment, so as to show the stages of Edna’s awakening.

    Read More

  • 1984 And The Second Coming

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    "The blood-dimmed tied is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned". As many currently see our society today, Yeats was in fear of what the future had in store, and felt it necessary to warn society of their abominable behavior. All of the good in the society has been taken over and overwhelmed by the horrible actions. No longer do ceremonies, or acts of kindness, take place, which Yeats believes is a direct effect of the loss of youth and innocence. "That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle". This quote from "The Second Coming" informs the society that if they do not begin to correct their transgressions against one another as a whole they will awake the anti-Christ. The anti-Christ will come to claim his Jesus and correct the predicament that they have gotten themselves in to.

    Read More

  • Keats and Longfellow

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    Time is endlessly flowing by and its unwanted yet pending arrival of death is noted in the two poems “When I Have Fears,” by John Keats and “Mezzo Cammin,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Keats speaks with no energy; only an elegiac tone of euphoric sounds wondering if his life ends early with his never attained fame. He mentions never finding a “fair creature” (9) of his own, only experiencing unrequited love and feeling a deep loss of youth’s passion. Though melancholy, “Mezzo Cammin,” takes a more conversational tone as Longfellow faces what is commonly known as a midlife crisis. The two poems progressions contrast as Keats blames his sorrow for his lack of expression while Longfellow looks at life’s failures as passions never pursued. In spite of this contrast, both finish with similar references to death. The comparable rhyme and rhythm of both poems shows how both men safely followed a practiced path, never straying for any spontaneous chances. The ending tones evoking death ultimately reveal their indications towards it quickly advancing before accomplish...

    Read More

  • Authority in Ozymandias and The Second Coming

    398 Words  | 1 Pages

    Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" portrays the past power of authority symbolized by the once great world power of Egypt.  William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming" portrays the past power religion once had over the world, gradually lost ever since the end of Shelley's era of Romanticism.  "Ozymandias" was written in a time when human rule coupled with religious guidance, but was slowly easing away from that old tradition as they entered the highly progressive era of the Victorians.  In his poem, Shelley was comparing the formally powerful Egyptian pharaoh's "antique" and prideful form of rule with the unsuccessful future the "traveller" met in the desert with the ruins of the king's "shattered visage" (Longman, Shelley, p. 1710, l. 1 & 4).  In a sense, Shelley was also saying that human rulership was just as easily able to fail as the once great and powerful world rule of Egypt once did, for ages.  Yeats also is alluding to this idea, but imposing his view on another type of rule once great for hundreds of years of its rulership, that of Christianity or religion in general.  In "The Second Coming" he envisions the "falcon" of humanity drifting away and ignoring "the falconer," Christian religions (Longman, Yeats, p. 2329, l. 2).  "The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart" says Yeats, depicting how human reliance on religion has become cold and disinterested in its lead anymore due to human progress of science, thus their loss of reliance and trustworthiness of religion's claims.

    Read More

  • Figurative Language In William Butler Yeats The Second Coming

    322 Words  | 1 Pages

    In The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats adopts a foreboding tone and utilizes symbolism, allusions, and figurative language to illustrate the story of the anarchic apocalypse and the prophecy of Christ who would be reborn to mend world order. Yeats utilizes symbolism which emphasized this underlying story through symbolism, at the beginning stating “the falcon cannot hear the falconer,” (2) a symbol of the departure from law and morality and a flight towards corruption and battle. The use of the falcon, a prey, represents that those who stray from law will be victims of the path they fall into. In addition to these symbols, Yeats adopts numerous allusions starting with “The blood dimmed tide is loosed,” (5) which he mentioned after explaining

    Read More

  • Chaos and Fright in William Butler Yeats’ The Second Coming

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the first stanza of William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming”, the speaker paints a picture of chaos and frightening sight. The first image we read is the gyre. “Turning and turning in the widening gyre” (1), Tracy Caldwell says “the gyre refers to Yeats’ personal understanding of cyclical events in history explained in his work, ‘A Vision’, which details the theory of metaphysics and history he claimed to have received from the spirit world” (2). In the second line, the speaker states that order is loose that “the falcon cannot hear the falconer” (2). “The circular motion of the falcon not only refers to the gyre explained above, but also may refer to the loss of gravitational center, exerting a powerful force of integration kept in place only if the falcon would (or could) keep its normal orbit around the falconer” (Caldwell 2). Bloom says “and the falcon represents his mastery of nature, now in the act of falling apart” (2). “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” (4). Everything is out of control. “The ceremony of innocence is drowned/the best lack all conviction, while ...

    Read More

  • An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

    1770 Words  | 4 Pages

    In William Butler Yeats' poem, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death," he focuses on man's inner nature.  He touches on the many jumbled thoughts that must race through one's mind at the point when they realize that their death is inevitable.  In this poem, these thoughts include the airman's believed destination after leaving Earth, his feelings about his enemies and his supporters, his memories of home, his personal reasons for being in the war and, finally, his view of how he has spent his life.  Through telling the airman's possible final thoughts, Yeats shows that there is a great deal more to war than the political disputes between two opposing forces and that it causes men to question everything they have ever known and believed.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Keats's Ode To Melancholy Essay

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    This opposition shows Keats highlighting the delicate correspondence between happiness, death and melancholy having humanistic traits. In order to experience true sorrow, one must feel true joy to see the beauty of melancholy. However, Keats’s poem is not all dark imagery, for interwoven into this poem is an emerging possibility of resurrection and the chance at a new life. The speaker in this poem starts by strongly advising against the actions and as the poem continues urges a person to take different actions.

    Read More

  • Death and Destruction; An Analysis of Imagery in The Second Coming

    765 Words  | 2 Pages

    Further imagery is provided by the seas full of blood and drowning. The 'best' in society are apathetic while the worse have a "passionate intensity". Through this image, Yeats presents an image of a chaotic society headed towards self destruction. The gyres play an interesting role as they symbolize the transition of one to another, as one gyre ends at the center of another. Thusly providing the idea that Yeats believes of a transition that is coming. Which he cites as an anticipated change that he is looking forward to. This event can be characterized by "The Second Coming". A symbolic reference can be made in ...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Sailing To Byzantium By William Butler Yeats

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    The future holds things that are unknown to everybody. But then again we all work so hard to help create the future for one another. In the poem Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats, this a poem about the future. Along with his own personal options of life after death and what happens to one after death. William Butler Yeats lived in the years marked by unprecedented world wars, revolutions, technology innovations, and mass media explosion. Yeats got deep into his nation 's mythological past for insight. The poem has many messages that can be extracted from the its content. The three I found to be most empowering are, younger generations are all about love, we don 't ever know when death will come, and how as someone ages their viewpoints change.

    Read More

  • Spirituality and The Second Coming

    924 Words  | 2 Pages

    In his eloquent poem "The Second Coming" William Butler Yeats uses word choice and phrase combinations to convey to the reader an understanding of his sentiment of impossibility concerning the fate of spirituality for the human race. His inner conscious is spread out in the poem for the reader to either accompany him in his darkness or to turn their back and continue to believe in their own form of hopefulness in spirituality.

    Read More

  • Allusion And Symbolism In The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats

    587 Words  | 2 Pages

    In "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats, Yeats uses allusions, symbols, and vivid imagery to convey his cynical and despondent tone about the new evil, corrupt, and immoral era following World War I.

    Read More

  • An analysis of Yeats’ philosophy and his poems.

    620 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was a twentieth century poet who used past events to write poems about the future. Yeats had a very interesting philosophy. He combined his interests in history, art, personality, and society and wrote poems about how these subjects created conflicts in the world. Yeats used his poems and other writings to display his passion for mysticism. Yeats liked to use gyres to show how two different forces struggle against each other. In his mind, these struggles could represent the development of a personality or the fall of civilizations. However, Yeats also liked to imagine completion along with conflict. Yeats’ philosophy of change and stability is expressed through many of his poems.

    Read More

  • Poetry Analysis of The Second Coming by Yeats

    2979 Words  | 6 Pages

    Mr. Yeats relates his vision, either real or imagined, concerning prophesies of the days of the Second coming. The writer uses the Holy Bible scripture text for his guide for because no one could explain this period of time without referring to the Holy Bible. He has chosen to present it in the form of a poem, somewhat like the quatrains of Nostradamus. The poem does not cover all the details of this event, but does give the beginning of the powerful messages, and a dark look at those ominous days surrounding the Second Coming of The Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps he is trying in his own words to warn everyone about the end time days.

    Read More

  • Williams Arguments On The Concept Of Agent Regret

    1314 Words  | 3 Pages

    William believes that agent-regret is so ubiquitous that it exists even in cases of involuntary agency, and that society finds this the norm rather than an aberration. To illustrate this premise, he posits a hypothetical case of a lorry-driver who, through no fault of his own, runs over a child. Despite knowing he was not at fault, the lorry driver feels a sense of agent-regret different from spectator regret: he wishes not merely that the event had not happened, but that he had not hit the child. While society will attempt to assuage his guilt, he will face some degree of societal condemnation if he acquiesces too quickly.

    Read More

More about Adversity In The Second Coming Essay

Open Document