The first stanza begins with a familiar setting, a “… winter evening”(1). This is associated with a lack of growth and a loss of vitality. It also describes death and desolation. This does not last long when we are confronted,” with smells of steaks in passageways”(2) paints a picture of a polluted and mundane environment. The precise use of descriptive words composes this mood of decline and despair. As seen when you read ” …the burnt-out ends of smoky days”(4).
The mood is vital to understanding Eliot’s vision of anguish and despair of the individual that is alienated from society. These moods are expressed throughout with the careful use of imagery, diction and repetition. His distinctive syntax and use of rhythm also enhance the effects of his poetry. Only in stanza III does he actually describe a person and not a body part, as
Ratza 2
he does in the stanzas before and after. Example of this is “withered leaves about your feet”(7), and “one thinks of all the hands”(21). He also uses the human presence to describe them in the poem, an example of this is, “the smell of steaks”(2) and “to early coffee-stands”(18). He makes inanimate objects the topic of his sentence and more important then the people, for example “ The winter evening settles down/ With smell of steaks in passageways.”(1-2). He makes the winter evening the topic of the sentence, not the human presence. In “of withered leaves about your feet/ and newspapers from vacant lots…”(7-8), he makes the non-living, unimportant objects, the focuses of his sentences.
Most of the poem is described outside, ”the winter evening…”(1) where it is cold and desolate. In stanza III we go inside, where it proves that it is no cleaner, “or clasped the yellow soles of feet/ In the palms of both soiled hands”(37-38), than outside. Eliot writes of how the world is suffering and how nothing was done by them to deserve this with “wipe your hand across your mouth and laugh;/ The worlds revolve like ancient women/ gathering fuel in vacant lots”(52-54). Eliot has created a world of ugliness, dirt, and darkness. He uses many forms of imagery to convey this scene to the reader. He uses word choice, literal imagery, description of human extremities and presence, and rhythm. T.S. Eliot writes about a world of suffering and hopelessness and creates a physically powerful emotion with his readers that they feel the desperation of the world, through his imagery.
Ratza 3
Work Cited
Eliot, T. S. “Preludes.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 6th edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001. 759.
