“Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” T.S. Eliot (T.S. Eliot Quotes.) TS Eliot was not only a poet, but a poet that wanted to change his world. He was writing in the hopes that it would give his society a reality check that would encourage them to change themselves and make their lives more worthwhile. Through his themes of alienation, isolation, and giving an example of a decaying society, TS Eliot wanted to change his society. Alienation is a common theme that consistently runs throughout TS Eliot’s poetry. Eliot knew how alienation felt first hand through his experience of being born in Missouri and later moving to Boston to go to college. He described himself as feeling like a New Englander in the Southwest, and a South westerner in New England (Bush, TS Eliot’s Life and Career). Knowing this feeling made it easy for him to write many poems concerning this idea such as Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Half-past two, The street lamp said, "Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter, Slips out its tongue And devours a morsel of rancid butter." So the hand of a child, automatic, Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay. I could see nothing behind that child's eye. (Poetry Archive) This poem doesn’t deal with alienation where a person is all alone and there is absolutely no one around. In fact, there are people present but they ...
Isolation can be a somber subject. Whether it be self-inflicted or from the hands of others, isolation can be the make or break for anyone. In simpler terms, isolation could range anywhere from not fitting into being a complete outcast due to personal, physical, or environmental factors. It is not only introverted personalities or depression that can bring upon isolation. Extroverts and active individuals can develop it, but they tend to hide it around crowds of other people. In “Richard Cory,” “Miniver Cheevy,” The Minister’s Black Veil,” and “Not Waving but Drowning,” E.A. Robinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Stevie Smith illustrate the diverse themes of isolation.
Almost everybody feels a sense of alienation or isolation at some point in their life. Maybe it was when you were a young kid at a playground in school, being left out of activities. Or maybe this feeling is being experienced by an adult who is having economical or social issues. Whatever the source is for these feelings, it is not a pleasant one, and one we tend to try and avoid as much as possible in life. In the two stories I’ll be discussing, “ The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “Desiree’s Baby” by Kate Chopin, there are two characters who experience feelings of alienation, isolation and oppression quite heavily. The effects of alienation and oppression are hindering to women’s independence and well-being. This is seen in the situations of two women we are going to be focusing on for this paper. Alienation and oppression can hinder the well-being and happiness of the individual experiencing it. It can also have long lasting psychological effects and cultural effects as you’ll see in this research paper.
Loss and isolation are easy, yet difficult to write about. They are easy because every human being can empathize with loneliness. If someone denies this, they are lying because loneliness is a common feeling, anyone can relate. It’s hard because we don’t discuss loneliness or loss publicly very often, and when we do, we forget about it quickly. These poems contrast each other by speaking of the different types of loneliness and isolation, distinguishing between the ones of loss, and isolation in a positive perspective.
Isolation is a popular theme in Ray Bradbury’s short stories. It is in all the short stories that were read in class. I, personally, can identify with this theme because i suffer from depression and anxiety. I know that it is sometimes easier to be alone then to deal with people. I know what it is like to not want or be able to leave the comfort of home.
Have you ever noticed those few people that are always by themselves or are alienated by others? Maybe it is because they may be poor, or how they dress, or where they are from. There are always those few people that are different, like in “The Doll’s house” how the Kelveys were alienated by their classmates due to what they wore and how they looked like. Being an outsider is universal because it happens in different places around the world. For instance, in “Sonnet, With Bird” the poem by Sherman Alexie, alienation happens all the way in England. Some might argue that it is not universal in the fact that everyone thinks differently or those who are alienated do not mind being alone and end up doing great things.
Being unwanted, unloved, and forgotten is one of the hardest things that one may have to cope with. In the book “Theories of Relativity” by Barbara-Attard Haworth, the poem “Behind her Tears” by Jessica Sanches, and the short story “The Ugly Duckling” by Hans Christian Andersen, all share a similar theme which is feeling unaccepted in one’s family, or community. The feeling of being unwanted crosses each and every mind at least once, and it impacts that someone’s life. They also try their hardest just to fit in, and they will always find a way through.
Loneliness is usually a common and unharmful feeling, however, when a child is isolated his whole life, loneliness can have a much more morbid effect. This theme, prevalent throughout Ron Rash’s short story, The Ascent, is demonstrated through Jared, a young boy who is neglected by his parents. In the story, Jared escapes his miserable home life to a plane wreck he discovers while roaming the wilderness. Through the use of detached imagery and the emotional characterization of Jared as self-isolating, Rash argues that escaping too far from reality can be very harmful to the stability of one’s emotional being.
The theme of alienation has been depicted by two different characters in a resembling series of events. The two protagonists were alienated by their peers, inflicting negative consequences they must undergo. Both characters are finally pushed to alienating themselves rather than being alienated. In conclusion, the struggles both characters undergo are practically identical to one another. They have experienced alienation in such similar ways that you must ask yourself: are all those who suffer from alienation alike in more ways than one?
Throughout this powerful novel, we observe the injustice in societal rejection and the pain caused by this. However, another extremely dominating theme involving the need for friendship surfaces again and again in all of the prominent characters. The Creature's isolation reveals the effects that loneliness can have when it is the strongest feeling in one's life. Taken as a whole, while the ability to care for oneself is important, people will always need someone to be there when the road gets rough.
T. S. Eliot has always incorporated or reflected the idea of disillusionment in a young generation after World War I. This means they were no longer believing the same ideals as they were before. Just after his years in college, he saw everyone broken and hopeless after the war (Shmoop “T.S. Eliot”). His first work greatly conveying this idea is The Wasteland, which contains a lot of hopelessness and depression (Shmoop “T.S. Eliot”). Eliot saw that life is brutal and difficult and believed that this must also be conveyed in poetry (Shmoop “T.S. Eliot”). After studying at Harvard, Eliot moved to England to receive his doctorate at Oxford. However, he loved the country, and married a woman with the wrong intent of keeping himself there. Unfortunately, he did not love the woman, and felt just as broken as The Wasteland (Shmoop “T.S. Eliot”). In “The Hollow Men,” Eliot uses his idea of post-war disillusionment and despair by incorporating images of hollowness, emptiness, dryness, silence, and death.
These exact lines were quoted from Thomas Sterns Eliot's (hereafter Eliot) essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" which was first published in Egoist, December 1920. This shows the kind of approach Elliot had towards poetry, an approach which most poets lacked; an approach with historical motifs; an approach which was shared by William Butler Yeats (hereafter Yeats) for he once stated "The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write."
... distant society has become form that of romanticism. While Eliot may not have intended to critique specifically the change since the romantic era, romanticism and modernism seem to be polar opposites when it comes to literary ideas and the intent of the authors. In conclusion, the change in language, imagery, and content of romantic and modern poetry has changed both the ideas of literature and the intended impact this literature is meant to have on society.
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is an elaborate and mysterious montage of lines from other works, fleeting observations, conversations, scenery, and even languages. Though this approach seems to render the poem needlessly oblique, this style allows the poem to achieve multi-layered significance impossible in a more straightforward poetic style. Eliot’s use of fragmentation in The Waste Land operates on three levels: first, to parallel the broken society and relationships the poem portrays; second, to deconstruct the reader’s familiar context, creating an individualized sense of disconnection; and third, to challenge the reader to seek meaning in mere fragments, in this enigmatic poem as well as in a fractious world.
Overall Eliot’s allusions used in his poem The Waste Land all had purpose and related to something deeper. Wither it is love or the creation of life Eliot was able to make several connection to the reader and other writings. Eliot wrote his poem to announce to the world the devastation of the First World War. Eliot made references to biblical, mythical or and other forms of literary. Eliot used them to his advantage to show the social break down of the US after WWI. The Waste Land is truly a testament to T.S. Eliot and his modernistic style of writing.
...required a reinvention of poetics and the very use and meaning of language. Since the modern period is said to extend to this day (it's debated whether it's post-modern or not, since both elements survive), any final say on the matter is difficult. What can be said is that Eliot's poetry, as misinterpreted, misread, and misunderstood as it may be, is a quintessential cornerstone in modernist thought, a fragment in the puzzle, which may yield an emergent whole, though it may not be fully grasped.