Harvey Merrick, a brilliant sculptor, has died and is being transported back to his hometown of Sand City. Throughout The Sculptor’s Funeral, the short story is told from multiple points of view. The beginning of The Sculptor’s Funeral is told from the point of view of Henry Steavens. Henry Steavens is a student of Mr. Merrick’s and considers him a mentor. Henry travels with Mr. Merrick’s body as it is being transported to his hometown in Kansas. The point of view of Henry Steavens is significant to the setting of The Sculptor’s Funeral because he comes from Harvey Merrick’s life after he has left his hometown. Harvey Merrick is essentially returning to his hometown for the first time since his departure and having Henry there to experience …show more content…
Throughout many of his poems, Frost puts the everyday scenery as the main focus and uses it to express his inner thoughts. Frost uses his individual poems and works them into a larger poem by using a reoccurring narrator. Such as, in Mending Wall, the speaker describes a farmer and his neighbor having an argument about his apple orchard and his neighbor’s pine tree. The neighbor does not want any of the speaker’s apple orchards to mess with his pine tree. The speaker makes a clever comment about how his apple orchards cannot get across and mess with the cones under his pine trees. The neighbor only responds with, “Good fences make good neighbors (Frost 232).” That exact quote is symbolic of not only the fact that having a wall to separate the apple orchards and pine tree prevents any future conflicts between the neighbors but the same could be said in life. The speaker, for the duration of the poem, contemplates the words of his neighbor. As if to lead the reader to draw their own conclusion on the wall …show more content…
Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is unexpectedly not at all a “love song” like the title suggest. Eliot tells the poem through the eyes of a man by the name of J. Alfred Prufrock. Prufrock comes off as very awkward, especially when it comes to the opposite sex. For example, “And how should I presume… Is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? (Eliot 369).” Prufrock makes reference to trying to get the confidence to talk to a woman. Ultimately, he can’t find the courage and does not talk to the woman. The whole poem is ironic due to the fact that although the title suggest that it is a “love song” it is more Prufrock telling about his isolation and social awkwardness in his
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966. 369-372. Print.
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” tells the speaker’s story through several literary devices, allowing the reader to analyze the poem through symbolism, character qualities, and allusions that the work displays. In this way, the reader clearly sees the hopelessness and apathy that the speaker has towards his future. John Steven Childs sums it up well in saying Prufrock’s “chronic indecision blocks him from some important action” (Childs). Each literary device- symbolism, character, and allusion- supports this description. Ultimately, the premise of the poem is Prufrock second guessing himself to no end over talking to a woman, but this issue represents all forms of insecurity and inactivity.
T.S. Eliot’s breakthrough poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is expertly crafted to have a complex structure with various hidden themes. The poem acts as an inner monologue for the titular character, appearing as lyric-narrative poetry. However, it does appear to lean towards a lyric poem, with the hazy plot consisting of Prufrock describing what his life has been like, in retrospect to speculating on what is to come next. The monologue throughout is melancholy in nature, with Prufrock dwelling on issues such as unrequited love, his frail body, his looming demise, and a dissatisfaction with the modernist world. Eliot uses a variety of metaphor within the poem to showcase Prufrock’s indecision, between being unable to fully live, while
The speaker in Frost’s, “Mending Wall” expresses through thoughts primarily the necessity for a wall between himself and his neighbor. Every year the wall is damaged by weather and hunters as the speaker indicates, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall (Frost, 51).” Additionally, the speaker asks his neighbor of what purpose is there is such ...
We might also regard "Mending Wall" in light of what Frost says in his 1934 letter to his daughter Lesley about the doctrine of Inner Form. The "neighbor beyond the hill" is all on the side of conformity, the speaker of the poem (at least by his own account) all on the side of formity. Frost himself—and here we should perhaps distinguish him from his speaker—stands at the dialectical intersection of these two opposed terms, for as he says in "The Constant Symbol" about the "discipline[s]" from "within" and from "without": "He who knows not both knows neither."
Mending Wall written by Robert Frost, describes the relationship between two neighbors and idea of maintaining barriers. Where one of them feels that there is no need of this wall, 'There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard.' On the other hand his neighbor remains unconvinced and follows inherited wisdom passed down to him by his father, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' They even kept the wall while mending it, this reflect that they never interact with each other, ?We keep the wall between us as we go?. Robert Frost has maintained this literal meaning of physical barriers but it does contain metaphor as representation of these physical barriers separating the neighbors and also their friendship.
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is about a timid and downcast man in search of meaning, of love, and in search of something to break from the dullness and superficiality which he feels his life to be. Eliot lets us into Prufrock's world for an evening, and traces his progression of emotion from timidity, and, ultimately, to despair of life. He searches for meaning and acceptance by the love of a woman, but falls miserably because of his lack of self-assurance. Prufrock is a man for whom, it seems, everything goes wrong, and for whom there are no happy allowances. The emptiness and shallowness of Prufrock's "universe" and of Prufrock himself are evident from the very beginning of the poem. He cannot find it in himself to tell the woman what he really feels, and when he tries to tell her, it comes out in a mess. At the end of the poem, he realizes that he has no big role in life.
Reinforcing the central idea of the poem through fragmentation techniques, and through commentary from Eliot about the social world of Prufrock, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot is of a man in a human connection voided modern society’s inability to take decisive action. Through Eliot’s fragmentation, the social world of Prufrock is seen as disordered, empty, repetitive, chaotic, judgmental, isolated and a couple others, but nonetheless, he painted a good portrait of the society and has a good sense of the society in which Prufrock inhabits.
Eliot uses a number of notably modern techniques to construct his 'love song' which is, ironically, not a lyrical praise of beauty or confession of undying devotion. Instead, the reader is invited to explore the mind of a nervous man, presumably middle-aged due to the reference the "bald spot in the middle of [his] hair" (40), who is apprehensive about attending social functions where "the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo" (13-14). This refrain, repeated in lines 35-36, represents the nature of the socialites that Prufrock encounters, individuals that use an i...
The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a poem that was written by T. S Eliot. The poem introduces the character, Prufrock, as a man who is very pessimistic about everything and is incapable of change. Prufrock sees the society he lives in as a place that is full of people who think alike, and he thinks he is different from them. Though Prufrock, realizes that the society he is associated with needs a change and have more people who think differently, but the fact that he is very concerned about what people would think of him if he tries to speak up to make a change or that he would be ignored or be misunderstood for whatever he says hindered him from expressing himself the way he would like to. Prufrock then decides not to express himself in order to avoid any type of rejection. In the poem, Prufrock made use of several imagery and metaphor to illustrate how he feels about himself and the society he is involved in. Prufrock use of imageries and
Frost begins the poem by relating the damage that has been inflicted upon the wall. The stunning image of the force "that sends the frozen-ground-swell under it and spills the upper boulders in the sun, and makes gaps even two can pass abreast" shows us that something natural, beautiful, and perhaps divine is taking place (2-4). From the very beginning he suggests that living without the wall is something positive. As the poem continues, we are introduced to two farmers engaged in the annual task of making repairs to the stone wall which separates their properties. In lines 14-17, Frost gives us the description of the neighbors meeting to walk the line, each picking up and r...
In his poem 'Mending Wall', Robert Frost presents to us the ideas of barriers between people, communication, friendship and the sense of security people gain from barriers. His messages are conveyed using poetic techniques such as imagery, structure and humour, revealing a complex side of the poem as well as achieving an overall light-hearted effect. Robert Frost has cleverly intertwined both a literal and metaphoric meaning into the poem, using the mending of a tangible wall as a symbolic representation of the barriers that separate the neighbours in their friendship.
Eliot composed "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" during a period beginning in 1909, and ending with the culmination of his first published book, Prufrock and Other Observations, which was published in 1917 (Scofield 46). The changes he made over several years may account for the fragmentation of the poem, but the main theme of paralysis was ever present, and would continue to be a major theme of Eliot's for much of his career (Scofield 46). Originally, the poem was titled "Prufrock Among The Women", which was later adapted and used in "Sweeny Among The Nightingales", and of course parodied E. B. Browning's "Bianca Among the Nightingales" (Loucks 1). Eliot chose to use the more ironic title, of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" instead, echoing the form of his name that Eliot himself was using at the time, that of T. Stearns Eliot (Southam 1).
The poem renders an apparent question: Why do people build unnecessary obstructions between one another? Each the poet and his neighbor stays on his side of the wall, taking up the stones that had fallen on his own side, which suggests that there is no trespassing at all. The mysterious force that appears to be attempting to destroy the wall is a symbolic representation of the craving for harmony among all of mankind. This craving is almost depressing, because the dissatisfaction is never quenched. Its will is, however, strong and persistent, and it "makes gaps even two can pass abreast," which is a plead for the men to put aside their differences and walk side by side. Frost sympathetically watches as his neighbor "moves in darkness." The poet does not mean that he dwells under the shadow of his pine trees, but under the shadow of his hostile ignorance, and the poet perceives no hope for his brutality. The neighbor, however, thinks himself highly for his wit, disregards the wisdom of his father, and states indifferently, "Good fences ...
The title T. S. Eliot chose for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is ironic. Mr. Prufrock does not love anyone, nor does he believe he is loved. He has disdain for the society of which he wishes he were a part, and he believes society views him no differently. The imagery of Mr. Prufrock's thoughts provide the audience a more detailed insight into his character than had Mr. Eliot simply listed Mr. Prufrock's virtues and flaws. Mr. Prufrock is seen as an exaggeration or extreme for the sake of literary commentary, but the world has many Prufrocks in many differing degrees, and T. S. Eliot has made them a little easier to understand.