T. S. Elliot Flashcards
The Hollow Men
“Mistah Kurtz - he dead. / A penny for the Old Guy”
“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but with a whimper.”
Mistah Kurtz is an allusion to the “heart of darkness” which is a book detailing the story of Mistah Kurtz who lived a very flamboyant life and went out with a so-called “Bang”. Guy Fawkes of course attempted to blow up parliament and his life ended after falling from the gallows and breaking his neck ending his life in an exciting fashion.
The second line mentioned in the end is of course drawing the original two allusions in and ending the cycle of the poem.
Preludes - Quotes
“the smell of steaks in passage ways” – an assault on the senses brought upon living in a big city
“That are raising dingy shades / In a thousand furnished rooms.” – Elliot sympathetic view of the working class
“You lay upon your back, and waited; / You dozed, and watched the night revealing / The thousand sordid images” The character is an insomniac and lays awake at night tormented. Perhaps intentionaly related to Elliot himself, who was tormented by his naturalistic intelligence in conflict with a deep and powerful religious upsurgence, a desire for a higher purpose and meaning
“Or trampled by insistent feet” – synecdoche
“And short square fingers stuffing pipes,” - synecdoche
“His soul stretched tight across the skies” “The notion of some infinitely gentle Infinitely suffering thing.” – both deep calls for meaning, small outbursts of religious fervor
“The worlds revolve like ancient women / Gathering fuel in vacant lots.” Shows how humanity is a meaningless cycle between life and death, never being fulfilling or purposeful.
Rhapsody - Quotes
“Midnight shakes the memory, As a madman shakes a dead geranium.” – simile comparing how memories are simply trying to reexperience the past which is comparable to a madman shaking a dead flower, he cant reinvigorate the dead, highlights the transient nature of existance.
Objective correlative – poetry that evokes emotions without directly mentioning those emotions
“The street lamp sputtered, The street lamp muttered,” – personification
“A twisted branch upon the beach, Eaten smooth, and polished, As if the world gave up, The secret of its skeleton,” – implied metaphor for mortality and the passing of time or the aging process
Prufrock - Quotes
“Let us go then you and I” - you and I may refer to the two incarnations of Prufrock, the romantic Prufrock, and the realistic Prufrock
“There will be time” – procrastinating and tying in with the idea of mortality and lost time
“Time to turn back and descend the stair with a bald spot in my hair” – Prufrock believes that he is unattractive and is insecure.
“In the room, women come and go talking of Michelangelo” – comparing Prufrock to Michelangelo, the great polymath who was also a very talented and masculine figure. This is in direct opposition to Prufrock who is rendered impotent by his extreme insecurities and self-consciousness
“And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, / When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,” feels like he will fail if he speaks up and as an inferior male, likening himself to a lowly insect
“Arms that are braceleted and white and bare / (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)” – despite Prufrock’s inability to talk to women he is disgusted by certain features. This is ironic as he also refers to himself as unattractive and inferior. He has a pessimistic and judgemental view against himself and others that makes romance impossible.
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws” - Prufrock envies lower forms of life as they possess no self-awareness. Prufrock’s awareness of his status as an inferior male in the process of sexual selection, and his painful awareness of his own mortality tortures him.
Prufrock’s perceived inferiority and insecurity is a self-fulfilling prophecy as due to his insecurities he is unable to “force the moment to it’s crisis”.
“Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,” demeaning himself by comparing himself to John the Baptist. A perceived superior man with a long mane of hair. If Prufrock were john the Baptist all people would see was his humiliating bald spot.
“to have squeezed the universe into a ball” – Andrew Marvel to his coy mistress – Marvel uses this line to refer to squeezing the love of him and his lover together, eloping together
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; - That is not it, at all.” Meaning that maybe he’s efforts may have ended in failure anyway, with the woman rejecting his advances
“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do” – refering to how Prufrock and prince hamlet seem alike in the fact that they take a great delay before taking action. This comparison however is wrong because as Prufrock says he is more like Polonius, a side character, timid and unheroic although he plays he’s role.
“I grow old, I grow old” – having given up on his ambitions to love, he accepts his fate as a lonely bachelor growing old, he then begins to ask more practical questions “Do I dare to eat a peach?”, showing the realist Prufrock, deprived of his romantic fantasies.
“The patient etherized upon a table” showing how Prufrock’s intelligence stops him from engaging in fantasies, but his unattractiveness combined with his social anxiety stops him from acting on these fantasies.
Hollow Men
“Mistah Kurtz - he dead. / A penny for the Old Guy” Allusions to “A Heart of Darkness” and the real-life Gunpowder plot in which both men lead flamboyant and exciting lives. This is in conflict with Elliot’s own modernist view, in which he views life as meaningless and monotonous.
“Shape without form, shade without colour, / Paralysed force, gesture without motion;” shows Elliots spiritual paralysis without a belief in rebirth. The finality of death and the oblivion cancels out any meaning that life may bring
“to death’s other kingdom” – referring to dying
“In death’s dream kingdom” – referring to life, deaths dream kingdom
“Than a fading star.” Alluding to th star of Bethlehem, a metaphor for hope in an afterlife
“Here the stone images” – referencing grave stones, pyramids. Man’s desperate attempts to achieve immortal life
“The supplication of a dead man’s hand” – despite death man still pleads desperately for immortality
“Sightless, unless / The eyes reappear/ As the perpetual star / Multifoliate rose / Of death’s twilight kingdom / The hope only / Of empty men.” Elliot using the symbol of the star of Bethlehem and the rose to symbolise Jesus, how man can come to salvation under Christ. However this is merely the hope of empty men. Rebirth under Christ does not exist, and is only hoped for by men who cannot face the annihilation of their existence.
“This is the way the world ends / not with a bang but with a whimper” – the bang symbolises Kurtz and Fawkes, who lead ambitious and exciting lives. The whimper is referring to The hollow men’s pathetic and desperate plea for immortality
