In the end
of 19th century, appeared “modernists” who were writers and artists.
They were trying to find out what was happening when the century turned to 20th
century, because there are significant changes from the 19th century
to the 20th century. Small cities might be the main field of the
urban-life style because they were transformed from farming populations to
small urban centers such as banks, cinemas, hospitals, department stores,
shops, factories, and ware shops.
One of
modernism writer was T.S.Eliot. He was born in St.Louis, Missouri, United
States on September 18th 1888. His work, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, was considered as an
influential poem in the movement of modernism because it contained imagery, and
had introduced some of character such as despair, anxiety, hopelessness and
fragmentation.
In this poem, the speaker, Prufrock, wanted to ask something, an
overwhelming question, to the woman he desires. On the way to the meeting
place, he describes everything that surrounded him in a dull and bitter way. He
thought that everything was overwhelming and disorderly arranged. He also
scared of the response that he would get when he tell that something to the
woman. While he was walking down the street, he thought some random things in
his life, which shows a fragmentation. As he walked and describing things
around him, he jumped to his worries about future and old age, then he talked
about women and Lazarus. In thoughts of his old age, he seemed indecisive,
confused and hopeless; we can see that in “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I
dare to eat a peach? / I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the
beach / I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each / I do not think that
they will sing to me”. He also felt that no one would love him and take care of
him. He thought that his life was miserable and undesirable, that is why he
tell and describe something in a gloomy way. We can see in “It is impossible to
say just what I mean” that he felt he was incapable of saying things, which
shows his anxiety and despair of himself. Another example of his anxiety and
hopelessness is when he was on the way meeting the woman, instead of making
himself calm (because of the overwhelming question), he torture himself by
asking more of depressing question like “Do I
dare / Disturb the universe?”; “So how should I presume?”; “And how should I
begin?”. The despair, anxiety and hopelessness of Prufrock show the
character of modern man. Furthermore, this poem showed a bit of obsession in a
modern man. Prufrock believed that there was no point to ask the overwhelming
question to the woman, but he decided to continue meeting the woman. Out of its
theme and interpretation, Eliot used imagery in this poem, which is one of sign
of modernism. For example, "When the
evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a
table" in lines 2–3, the "sawdust restaurants" and "cheap
hotels," the yellow fog, and the afternoon "Asleep...tired... or it
malingers" in line 77. To conclude, The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock could be considered as the sign of modernism
because Eliot used imagery in the poem and also feelings like despair, anxiety
and hopelessness which were characters of modern man.
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