How does TS Eliot present life in the early 20th century?

There are many key characteristics which Eliot presents in his poetry when writing, when alluding to the life
and the lifestyles people have in the early 20th century the outlook he casts is not one of optimism. The
majority of his works portray life and people as being discordant to one another and that a sense of unity is
never truly found, thus life is presented as fragmented.
One way Eliot presents life in the 20 th century is the unwholesome nature of living in this time period, the
areas described in his poems are seedy in appearance and beyond that falling into disrepute and tawdry. Eliot
presents human relations and interactions as being extremely superficial between man and woman, as
highlighted in portrait of a lady. Whereby the exchange between the two people is fractured and dull, ‘’a
Capricious monotone’’, this being an oxymoron serves to allude towards the separation and contrast of the
wants and needs of the two people. Thus it accentuates the battle between the male characters desire for
physical contact compared to the woman’s ideal of a more intimate and meaningful relationship. This
superficiality described by Eliot is presented in many of his poems; Preludes indicates a prime example of
pretending a lifestyle which uphold social conventions ‘’to early coffee stand with the other masquerades’’.
This shows the façades of urban life and is exemplified by people trying to conform to others and not
developing sociality and meaningful interactions. This discoordinated way of living is, on the surface,
portrayed by the style of writing Eliot uses. Utilising a stream of consciousness throughout many of his
poems can initially seem irregular and fragmented, however as with the lifestyle of the time delving deeper
uncovers more elaborate and intimate meaning. In the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock Eliot presents a feeling
of existential angst whereby the character contemplates what it is to be living and the feelings of negativity
arise from his exploration of a ‘’tedious argument’’. The intent is made out to be one of negatively contrived
ideas as Prufrock contemplates ‘’an overwhelming question…’’ thus alluding to the possibility of a deeper
meaning to life and that the superficiality of relationships at the time.
There is also a presentation of a seedy lifestyle related to the decrease in human contact and increased
anonymity in an expanding world. Particularly highlighted in J. Alfred Prufrock whereby the first part of the
poem is an invitation to an unspecified ‘’you’’ to go to an unspecified place. The sense of ambiguity in the
statement coupled with the disconcerting tone of ‘’patient etherised on a table’’ allows the simile, and hence
the character, to flow into an area which is predominated by ‘’cheap hotels’’. This initial journey through the
tawdry part of the city with more liberal lower classed dining establishments, shown by ‘’sawdust
restaurants with oyster shells’’ provides juxtaposed imagery of finer dining mixed with sexual ambiguity
notified by the supposed aphrodisiac of oysters. The phrase ‘’one-night’’ precursors an immediate exchange
which in the long term is meaningless, and secret to the outside world, thus ‘’muttering retreats’’ further
alludes to the hushed and publicly shunned conversations which heavily rely on the more liberal references
to sexuality and false intimacy. Continuing the sense of disreputable behaviour in the epigraph of Portrait of
a lady ‘’thou hast committed- fornication’’ this text was originally from the Jew of Malta and thus the
apparent biblical nature of the phrasing, the notion of pre-marital sexual relations is seen as a sin. Hence
Eliot reveals a lack of religious intent in the 20 th century, as more overtly sinful actions were committed by
people, and society was slowly changing after industry had increased and there became less necessity for
class differentials in everyday lifestyle.
There is also an increased impact of time in the 20 th century, this can be due to many factors such as
advances in science such as Einstein, but in a more tangible method the poem Rhapsody on a Windy Night
centres on the motif of time. The poem was written shortly after WWI which influenced the lives of a large
proportion of the population and thus allowed a period of mourning and reflection, in which made people
more self-aware of the constraints of time around them. The first line reflects the motif of time, but instantly
shows as if the protagonist falls into a delirium of memories of the past. “Whisper lunar incantations”,
reflects the role and symbol of the “moon”. The moon seems to be in the middle of two opposing forces:
unconsciousness and consciousness or dream and reality. It seems to play an effective role in resurrecting
forgotten memories in the past, whereby time seems to juxtapose with the “moon”, as time seems to
symbolize the reality that time is passing, despite these recursive memory lapses into the past. ‘’Every street
lamp that I pass beats like a fatalistic drum’’ creates a rather bleak and disparate tone and suggests that the
lives of the people in the poem are set on their predetermined path, they cannot break free of their lives as if
imprisoned by the monotonous nature of time, all while a soundless object creates a depressing piece of
music that echoes their futile existence. Although on the same thought process J. Alfred Prufrock uses the
fear that spending too much time with his female companion will lead to a relationship which will entangle
him too deeply in a drab, and mundane world, his fear is that meaningful time is slipping away from him. He
worries that he will lose his youthfulness ‘’hair is growing thin’’ which drives him forward to do what he set
out to do, yet he hesitates as the situation is not clearly dire or drastic yet. Knowing that time will narrow his
possibilities later in life he systematically makes each possibility real or not, and having already seen ‘’the
eternal footman’’ death, he knows there will not be time for everything.
In addition there is also a sense of death and decay amongst life in the 20 th century. Throughout society,
whether in religion, social, or physical there is an ever-present sense of the termination of these aspects. In
Portrait of a lady the death is not a literal one but more one of the classical sense of love and relations,
where there is no mutual connection just a pure physical relationship built on the foundations of personal
gains and not a seek for happiness. In Rhapsody on a windy night there is a very dark tone to the poem and
hence decay and the dying imagery is present constantly; ‘’devours a morsel of rancid butter’’. This creates
and image of a vile piece of literal rotting food and the cat laying in a dirty, disgusting location of a
‘’gutter’’ identifies the area and its inhabitants as being needing any sustenance to continue existing. This
could also allow the reader to subtly assume that it is a symbolism of the protagonist’s own futile existence
and alienation in society, as the cat exemplifies the bleak obscurity of life at the time. Furthermore ‘’I could
see nothing behind that child’s eye’’ is a Biblical allusion in which the eyes are considered to be the
windows to one’s soul, but the child that Eliot mentions cannot see through the soul, hence alluding to a
death in the future of society as if the succeeding people and children are without the essence of life, it could
signal a far greater death in creativity and hope for the future. To add to this dark tone towards humanity,
contrast is used in , “I have seen eyes in the street”, where he juxtaposes “eyes” and “street”, creating the
theme that even an inanimate object of a street is more humane than the actual human.
Therefore in conclusion in general terms the outlook that Eliot presents to the reader is one of bleak
obscurity, whereby the lifestyles shown are those usually frowned upon by common societal conventions,
such as the broken relations and alienation, yet also lack a sense of optimism for the future. The poems form
also seems to mirror the early 20 th century as after WWI there was a fragmented world where many people
were at odds with each other and Eliot tried to encapsulate those emotions, or lack of, in his writings.