Ts Eliot example essay topic

"Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" T.S. Eliot (T.S. Eliot Quotes.) TS Eliot was not only a poet, but a poet that wanted to change his world. He was writing in the hopes that it would give his society a reality check that would encourage them to change themselves and make their lives more worthwhile.

Through his themes of alienation, isolation, and giving an example of a decaying society, TS Eliot wanted to change his society. Alienation is a common theme that consistently runs throughout TS Eliot's poetry. Eliot knew how alienation felt first hand through his experience of being born in Missouri and later moving to Boston to go to college. He described himself as feeling like a New Englander in the Southwest, and a South westerner in New England (Bush, TS Eliot's Life and Career). Knowing this feeling made it easy for him to write many poems concerning this idea such as Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Half-past two, The street lamp said, 'Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter, Slips out its tongue And devours a morsel of rancid butter.

' So the hand of a child, automatic, Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay. I could see nothing behind that child's eye. (Poetry Archive) This poem doesn't deal with alienation where a person is all alone and there is absolutely no one around. In fact, there are people present but they aren't really alive but rather just living organisms that aren't doing anything important which may, in fact, be even worse then solitude. The street lamp is talking in this, which points out that to TS Eliot inanimate objects had more life to them then the regular people in the poem that was either an insult to the audience or trying to motivate them to change. If this poem did strike a cord with a person and they realized how fake and shallow they were then maybe they would wake up and really start living their live which was one of Eliot's underlying reasons for these types of poems.

In this poem he shows how the fake ness of society can eventually travel down even to the kids. Children are usually so filled with happiness and enjoying their life so much so when a child in this poem is depicted as having nothing behind their eyes it is meant to really hit a nerve within people. So the child is shown to have nothing behind it's eyes to show how adults in that time period having no substance to their lives will eventually go down and affect even the children. Another idea that deeply concerned TS Eliot was the decaying state of his society. In poem after poem the idea of feeling detached and pushed away from the world sprang out from the pages. The poem entitled Hollow men depicts this idea very well.

Here, TS Eliot describes how everyone is just hollow men stuffed with useless knowledge and things he calls 'straw'. "Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men". Even the dead in this poem look back on the people still alive and only see how empty they all are. Many times the dead will look back on Earth and be sad because we are so violent and lost but Eliot plays with that idea here.

The dead souls don't even see that issue, but rather see empty people. When a person is just filled with useless information and ideas that don't even matter to that individual but the person isn't really living, but acting out the motions. So, once again Eliot is trying to give his society a reality check. Similar to this idea was Eliot's truth for himself that it is better for someone to live in sin and do things that are viewed as wrong by society rather then sit by and let their whole lives pass by (Ackroyd, Peter. 23). Eliot explores the idea of not wasting one's life in his poem entitled The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock.

In this piece of literature the main character, Alfred Prufrock is deciding on whether or not to ask a girl to marry him. His problem is that he wants to but he doesn't know if it will be worth it once he is gone and dead and he feels inadequate because of things that he hears other people whispering about him. He considers the world to be corrupted and futile, but in this world his original expressions and deeds -- coming closer to a woman -- would be useless because this surrounding would not appreciate it. While he is aware of beauty, he is too inhibited to seek it, too hesitant to reach for it, and too surrounded by the sordid to achieve it (Thomas Stearns Eliot). By not taking this risk, it is my opinion that Eliot is looking down on him here. The girl may have rejected Prufrock but if she would have said yes and he never took that chance then all would be wasted.

So one of the messages that Eliot was clearly trying to get across to his audience was to take chances and not sit on the sidelines and watch your own life pass you by. Changing one's society seems like a big feat to be trying to challenge and yet TS Eliot did that very thing. He was a fearless man with fearless writing and he didn't want to write to just communicate his feelings. Communicating how he felt is one of the actions that did occur through his writing but he also wanted to change the world, as he knew it for the better.

And perhaps, there is still a lesson in his writing for people today. To not pretend to care about people, but genuinely care and take those risks in life even if there is the chance you might fail.