eliot quotes

Question 1

prufrock - stagnancy

Answer 1

“like a patient etherized upon a table”
“do I dare disturb the universe?”
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;”
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

Question 2

“in the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo”

Answer 2

allusion to Renaissance artist
assonance to show that there is not much substance and not much meaning to the reference
refrain
bourgeois society

Question 3

prufrock - superficiality

Answer 3

“in the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo”
“to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”
“one-night cheap hotels” “sawdust restaurants” “oyster-shells”

Question 4

prufrock - futile

Answer 4

“till human voices wake us, and we drown”

Question 5

“one-night cheap hotels” “sawdust restaurants” “oyster-shells”

Answer 5

objective correlative - symbolises a desperate search for meaning that results in futile decadence as Prufrock is faced with superficiality

Question 6

“to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”

Answer 6

chiasmus - demonstrates Prufrock’s acute awareness of how he presents himself and how the bourgeois (people of high society) are adopting facades resulting in superficial interactions

Question 7

“like a patient etherized upon a table”

Answer 7

simile - conveys stagnancy and paralysis, suggesting that the modern man is within a liminal space of change

Question 8

“do I dare disturb the universe?”

Answer 8

hyperbolic - compares entering a room to be like the universe, acute awareness, overthinking, fear of judgement, leads to stagnancy

Question 9

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;”

Answer 9

metaphor/hyperbole - Eliot references Bergsonian time measurement, alluding to Prufrock’s hypersensitivity about aspects of his life and fearing the opinions of others resulting in his paralysis

Question 10

“I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”

Answer 10

zoomorphism - the characteristics of a crab only able to have movement sideways reflects the behaviour of Prufrock who hesitates and fails to move forwards as a result of his insecurity and indecision

Question 11

“till human voices wake us, and we drown”

Answer 11

metaphor - underscores the suffocation experienced as a result of modernity, detained in a liminal space paralysed by anxiety, this ultimately illuminates the squalor of modernity by highlighting the profound neglect of the human psyche.

Question 12

rhapsody - isolation

Answer 12

temporal references “twelve o’clock”
“as a madman shakes a dead geranium”
“old crab… gripped the end of a stick which I held him”
“her hand twists a paper rose”

Question 13

the hollow men - loss of spirituality/hopelessness

Answer 13

“form prayers to broken stone”
“this broken jaw of our lost kindoms”
“For thine is life is for thine is the”
“valley of dying stars”
“we are the hollow men we are the stuffed men”

Question 14

rhapsody - decay of the modern world physically + morally

Answer 14

“remark the cat… devours a morsel of rancid butter”
“nothing behind that child’s eye”
“a washed-out smallpox cracks her face”
“the last twist of the knife”

Question 15

epigraph from Dante’s Inferno

Answer 15

provides a sense of loss, hopelessness and isolation, sets the tone of the poem

Question 15

Prufrock - eponymous speaker/flaneur figure, dramatic monologue

Answer 15

provides a link to the modern man of modern society while also representing Eliot’s own interpretations of his society.

Question 16

subversion of poetic form of Romanticism era

Answer 16

reacts to the era, contrasts the hopeful, ethereal nature of depicted things and confronts audience with the decadence of modern society in ruins due to industrialisation, superficiality in individuals, loss of spirituality

Question 17

subversion of pentaptych structure

Answer 17

subverts the traditional values and confronts with loss of spirituality

Question 18

“as a madman shakes a dead geranium”

Answer 18

the simile suggests a futile desperation where the geranium is “characterised by their ability to survive harsh conditons” from Laforgue 1886 however this gernium is dead symbolising hopelessness

Question 19

“an old crab… gripped the end of a stick which I held him”

Answer 19

crab is an icon of modern identity, where there is a sense of desperation to survive and need for support and yet there is a superficial connection between the two

Question 20

“her hand twists a paper rose”

Answer 20

symbolism - of love and beauty and femininity however is subverted by the ephemeral connotation of “paper” denoting Eliot’s subversion of Romanticism criticising it as meaningless

Question 21

“form prayers to broken stone”

Answer 21

symbolism - futile attempt at transcending and regaining spiritual faith as there they are praying to false idols and lacks authenticity

Question 22

“this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms”

Answer 22

intertextual allusion to the book ‘The Golden Bough’ - where the use of the jawbone of a diseased king is an effigy to provide hope however Eliot subverts this by revealing that there is no hope for the spiritually dispossessed.

Question 23

“For thine is life is for thine is the”

Answer 23

fragmented syntax - non-sensical phrasing suggests meaninglessness and emptiness and a result of their spiritual emptiness

Question 24

“valley of dying stars”

Answer 24

biblical allusion to psalm 23 “valley in shadow of death” - reveals that there is no comfort or spiritual salvation for these modern men.

Question 25

“we are the hollow men we are the stuffed men”

Answer 25

repetition - instils the concept that the modern men are unreal souls in a state of existential loss and are in a liminal space between death and heaven as a result of their spiritual emptiness

Question 26

“remark the cat… devours a morsel of rancid butter”

Answer 26

gustatory imagery - depicting the base nature of beings in a world where there is a desperation for sustenance and no space for comfort

Question 27

“nothing behind that child’s eye”

Answer 27

biblical reference to Matthew, “the eye is the lamp of the body”
- shows soulessness and a lack of morality and acts as criticism to the modern world

Question 28

“a washed-out smallpox cracks her face”

Answer 28

anti-aesthetic imagery - referencing the decadence of the modern world, plagued by disease and grotesque images

Question 29

“the last twist of the knife”

Answer 29

visceral imagery - death, torture, metaphorical death of the human soul as a result of the monotony of the modern world

Question 30

the hollow men - isolation

Answer 30

“rat’s coat crowskin, crossed staves”
“lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone”

Question 31

“life is very long”

Answer 31

reference to heart of darkness - sense of exhaustion and endless suffering caused by a lack of spiritual suffering