ESSAY: RHAPSODY ON A WINDY NIGHT, FACES IN THE STREET, PRELUDES.
In three separate poems the theme
of the street is bought out and examined. It is seen as a grey depressing window into people's lives
. Both T.S Eliot and Henry Lawson used the street as a metaphor for the lives of the poor.
Eliot in
Preludes seems to be searching for the one good thing amongst all the misery, but Henry Lawson is f
ocusing more on the coming of a revolution which he is sure will change things. Lawsons' style start
s off sorrowful, but he becomes more angry and revolutionary where as Eliot is more gentle, more sad
rather than angry, and has given up hope that it might change, and is now concentrating on finding
a good thing out of a bad situation, an "infinitely gentle thing".
Preludes is the start of a theme
that is continued in Rhapsody On A Windy Night. Rhapsody is a slightly more angry "I can't take it
any more" type of poem than Preludes, as represented in the lines "Beats like a fatalistic drum," a
nd "The last twist of the knife".
In Rhapsody, when Eliot says "Hard and curled and ready to snap"
he is not just alluding to a spring in a factory yard. He is talking about the people of the street
who have been stretched to breaking point by the harshness of life.
The prostitute is a prominent f
igure in all three of these poems; she is seen as the ultimate victim of the street, of the life tha
t the poor led. She is the worst off, the one who is forced to sell her body in order to survive and
because her form of survival is so gruesome, her soul is constituted "of a thousand sordid images".
Another important character is the child in Rhapsody On A Windy Night. Children are usually percei
ved as being very innocent, but the child on the street steals a toy without a thought, without any
guilt because that child's soul was practically empty.
Preludes is the story of an evening, and a s
tale morning, something that has worn out before it has even really begun. It is a morning like ever
y other morning in the lives of these people who get up, drink coffee, go to work, and come home and
get drunk so that they don't have to think about their lives, so they can keep pretending that they
like it. It is a masquerade.
In part II of Preludes, Eliot says, "The morning comes to consciousne
ss." The choice of the word consciousness may not have been deliberate, but maybe the author used co
nsciousness to convey the image that the day falls unconscious into night, like a person beaten to u
nconsciousness.
In Preludes III, the prostitute clasps the yellow soles of her feet, in the palms o
f both soiled hands. Her hands aren't as much physically soiled as mentally, morally soiled by the t
hings which she has done, in order to survive.
I think Preludes IV is about men coming home from w
ork "at four and five and six 'o clock" where they trample the street with their insistent feet, lig
ht their pipes and read their papers at home, and know that this same ritual will be performed night
after night, which is depressing, but in a way strangely comforting for them. The Night is eager to
swallow the world and begin a new day.
The poet is moved by all he has seen, he doesn't like what
he sees on the street, but he is faintly reassured by a fleeting gentle thing, which clings to the i
mages of the street, and the people he observes. Henry Lawson watches out his window at the faces i
n the street. He sees their faces "stamped with want and care", as people first start to walk to wor
k at dawn. He compares the streams of people to a river. The first wan and weary faces "trickle" by,
then "flowing in, flowing in", the human tide then goes out, and comes back in again while everyone
is walking home after eight 'o clock.
"The city grinds the owners of the faces in the street," The
people who live, in and around the street are so deprived of everything, their bodies are being gro
und every day from exhaustion, their souls from emotional starvation. The unemployed are weary, they
have given up hope of finding work, so instead they drift listlessly around the street.
While the
street is emptying, and night begins to fall "sickly yellow gaslights rise to mock the going day" fo
r it's utter despair. The small hours of the evening arrive but to the people and the street they se
em long.
A prostitute, "Delilah" a character from the bible who enticed Samson, is "pleading for cu
stom at the corner of the street-, sinking down, sinking down" she is sinking lower and lower, havin
g to do this awful job, a "thankless trade".
The city which used to be fair and young, is becoming
worse and worse, the slums are growing, and people rot away their lives living in houses not fit for
pigs to live in, and in "dens of vice and horror that are hidden from the street" which are perhaps
brothels and other horrifying places.
Lawson wonders whether the wealthy men of the city would be
able to endure seeing the visions of the street that he does. When God demands a reason that the str
eet is in such a state, these wealthy men shall be terrified; their knees shall knock, because they
are the reason behind the street.
Even when Lawson leaves his window looking over the street, he is
haunted by shadows of the pale weary faces that he has seen. He cried "O God Almighty! If thy might
doth still endure, Now show me in a vision for the wrongs of earth a cure" and he hears the sound o
f distant feet, coming near, he hears the coming of a revolution. Despair has conscripted these peop
le, in a war against the street. People's weary faces have turned bright and angry, with the heat of
the revolution. And Lawson resigns himself to the fact that he may write all he wants, that people
will warn until their voices grow hoarse, but not until a city has a revolution, will anything be ch
anged.
In conclusion, each poet sees the street, and people's lives, as a cause for sorrow. This vi
ew is not held by all, others may see life and the street as a happy thing, but these two men saw it
as a harsh, cruel ugly thing. Lawson's solution is a revolution, Eliot doesn't really provide a sol
ution, but in Preludes resigns himself to the fact that that is what life is like and comforts himse
lf with small, fleeting, bittersweet things that are not happiness, but something almost like it.
essay rhapsody windy night faces street preludes three separate poems theme street bought examined s
een grey depressing window into people lives both eliot henry lawson used street metaphor lives poor
eliot preludes seems searching good thing amongst misery henry lawson focusing more coming revoluti
on which sure will change things lawsons styleEssay, essays, termpaper, term paper, termpapers, term
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