English 2323 Spring Final
BIBLICAL PATTERN IN SAGE WRITING
-1. Points to some contemporary phenomena , usually disaster of some kinds -2. Interprets it, showing how peers have abandoned way of God and Nature -3. Predicts final disaster if they continue evil course -4. Offers hopeful vision of bliss and prosperity if they improve
FASCISM
-Fiercely nationalist, exhorting people to rally around race and purtiy of ideas as litmus test for patriotism and nationalism -Like communism, it attempts to nationalize industry 'for good of state' instead of 'for good of worker'
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
-Focused on Irish culture and nationalism
MATTHEW ARNOLD
-Focuses on critiques of society
"PAY US POOR BEGGARS IN RED"
-Has 'ships on foam'; military all around world, particularly Navy -Has millions of people at home, but needs more subjects -Poor are paid in red (blood) bc they are expected to sacrifice, in war, expansion. and maintenance of empire
SAGE WRITING
-Inherent connection between writers and men (Swift and Wordsworth) who criticized foibles of society in work
LACK OF REPENTANCE
-Mersault never thinks about fact he has taken a father and husband -Absurdity in society creating a justice system to give meaning to action via capital punishment -Camus is saying we should look at Mersualt's death not as 'payment' for Arab's death, only as taking Mersault's life; we are trying to define a 'meaning of life'
CRITICISM OF WAR
-Wrote letter openly criticizing gov's motives for continuing war -Many saw letter as treasonous -Met Wilfred Owen and encouraged him to publish his poetry
VILLANELLE
19 lines with 5 3-line stanzas and one 4 line stanza-Standard rhyme scheme 2 lines repeated throughout the poem that are called refrain -Line 1 occurs as last line in 2nd and 4th stanza and last line in 6th stanza -Line 3 occurs in last line of 3rd, 5th, and 6th stanza -Precise structure -Originally French poetric, but name is based on Italian word for peasant -Format created by Jean Passerat
DARKLING THRUSH: 1ST STANZA
1st person speaker leaning on gate (passageway) on winter evening -Winter is symbolic for death of 19th cent
SPIRALS AND CIRCLES
3rd stanza speaker reaches Byzantium (where he thinks old age is appreciated) -Where he was before, life was a circle. Endless repetition of life-death-rebirth. Cycle as pointless. Nothing is recognized as important -We are walking in a circle bc we dont learn from the past
LOTS OF MEN VILLANELLE
4 middle stanzas catalogue 4 types of men who fight against dying of light -Wise men rely on words and therefore they cant make a real difference -Good men equated to waves, each wave is generation of good men; as they crash up on shore, they shout out deeds might have been better if they had more time -Wild men burn out fast -Grave men are losing faculties and so they fight hard and die out brightly
BYZANTIUM 1ST STANZA
Abruptness of break of dying generations being set off w dashes creates harsh reminder of brevity and cyclical nature of life -Repitition of fish. "Fish, flesh, fowl" -Flesh may be a ref. to all fleshy animals, but he seems to be placing humanity in the rest of the animal kingdom. -We are all subject to laws of life and death
VOICE OF HOPE IN DARKLING THRUSH
All bleakness comes from song of thrush -Not young thrush, aged one (Frail, gaunt, small) Pathetic little bird -Not voice of future, voice of present (beat down) -He chooses to throw his voice against the growing doom -Thrush is sad and pathetic, but song is fullhearted and illuminated w joy
MULTIFOLIATE ROSE HOLLOW MEN
Another ref. to Dante, but to Paraidisio where he refers to heaven as multipetaled rose, each petal reps. all heaven's dff inhabitants -Eliot says this is their only hope, that heaven (God) has mercy on them, granting sight, and goodness which they have lost
SHADOW CONTINUES TO BLOCK HOLLOW MEN
Between conception and creation -Emotion and response -Desire and spasm -Potency and existence -Essence and descent -Eliot is talking about sex... any and all forms and purposes
RESPONSE TO 20TH CENT TOTALITARIANISM
Birth of dystopian lit. is linked to rise of total. in first half of 20th cent -1984 is based on Soviet regime of Stalin in 1940's and 50's
ARABY THEME: ROUTINE
Boy trapped by routine of adults -Forced to wait until uncle can take him to bazaar -Joyce is saying lives become trapped in routine and we forget important stuff like young love and family
THE WIRERS: GHOSTS
Calls wirers 'clumsy ghosts' -End of second stanza, refers to dawn of new day as being 'ghastly' -Refers to 'black forms' of wirers against light of German flare -Alluding to death, like quality of war, death is everywhere
PURPOSELESSNESS OF LIFE
Camus believed life, existence, doesnt come w predetermined purpose; seeking purpose was pointless and waste of time -Ultimate statement of free will, what we do is entirely up to us and consequences from our actions ONLY stem from those actions, not predetermined purpose or goal
HOLLOW MEN SECTION II
Cant look anyone in the eye. Have fear of judgement and punishment in some dream world, or afterlife
SYMBOLISM IN DOVER BEACH
Cliffs are symbol of things that have been around forever, all rep of England as well -Waves push pebbles back and forth repeatedly over time -All this becomes symbolic of institutions of England and Christianity (Church of England) but also human suffering -Pebbles rep humans being pushed back and forth over sands of time
GREEN FERN HILL
Color green is ubiquitous ;meaning shifts throughout poem -Symbolizes innocence and youth, happy as grass was green and then was green and carefree; green is equated to innocence of childhood -Middle is green like fire; symbol starts to shift; greenness can be burned up, consumed -Line 44, green has become finite, children lose greenness -At end, he is green and dying; idea that even when we are young and green, we are always moving towards death
DOVER BEACH 3RD STANZA
Comparison of ancient world to modern one -Arnold describes Sea of Faith's 'at the full' in days past -Sea is retreating in 'melancholy, long, withdrawing roar' -Leaving the world without protection 'drear and naked'
WINSTON'S MOTHER
Complex and mulitlayered -Rep. of safety of the past and elusiveness of past -Illusion, only occurs in dreams. -Becomes a rep. of Party's ability to bastardize and destroy all memory and history
HARDY'S PERSPECTIVE
Concerned about tragedy that Industrial Rev. had caused -Influenced by Wordsworth and Dickens; both deeply concerned poverty caused by unbridled capitalism -By end of cent. flaws of Victorian society had come to end
SISYPHUS
Condemned to push rock up hill -Ultimate example of existential being -If he attempts to find meaning in goal, to get rock to top, he will be perpetually frustrated -But if he defines his life through the action of pushing rock up hill, his life makes sense; he has a sense of accomplishment
DEFINING MORALITY
Constantly faced w moral choices, but life doesnt provide us w right answers -We define our own moral code and attempt to live by it; this creates our moral being
THE GLASS PAPERWEIGHT
Coral is preserved in glass; changeless for Julia and Winston; what history and truth should be -Winston's intellectual sanctuary; gives comfort
MERSAULT
Created him to be ultimate existential man -Doesnt look for meaning, things just happen -He kills Arab for no reason, other than heat of sun and flint of sun on blade -Act is meaningless, just 'happens' to Mersault
STONE GODS HOLLOW MEN
Dead man, also hollow man, raises stone gods and hollow men pray to him -Star of gods are fading; false gods are materialism, greed, corruption, political power; cracked stone gods
THE WIRERS LAST STANZA
Death occurs -Young Hughes has been wounded badly, speaker presumes he will die -Died for a cause, repairing the wire (sarcasm) -Sassoon italicizes 'we' in the last line; refers to all soldiers -We as a society fool ourselves that futile gestures will make any real difference in the world
ABSURDISM CAMUS
Defined as belief that desire for meaning is greater than capacity of universe to produce meaning -Believes actions are only thing that define us and produce meaning, look for bigger meaning in life is pointless
BB (JOSEPH STALIN)
Description makes clear connection to Stalin. Face on posters are Stalin -Repression of gov. described are derived from Stalin's purges
ARABY CHRONOLOGICAL IN NATURE
Each story focuses on diff character but sticks to maturation cycle -Joyce is toying w intersection of novel and short story; idea of continuative narrative(novel) but using diff characters (SS)
MODERNITY IN DOVER BEACH
Easy to miss Arnold being critical of modern world -Refers to way people are attracted by newness of modernity, like phones and laptops -Saying they are a distraction from what is real and important in world
FERN HILL = EDEN
Edenic; his point is Fern hill (our rep. of childhood innocence) is fleeting like Eden -Eventually, experience intrudes on innocence; we all bite the apple eventually -Time leads children out of grace, alludes to loss of innocence, like Adam and Eve being expelled from Eden
END OF WORLD HOLLOW MEN
Ends w end of world -Does not end w a bang everyone expects -Ends by slowly dying away; no big battle between good and evil, hollowness of hollow men hollows out world and it ends
GREAT OUTDOORS 1984
England has pastoral tradition in lit. Pasture, shepherding, rolling hills rep. simplicity of past (standard) -In America, we have a similar image of simplicity: bucolic image relating to farm life -Representation of purity in American society
HOLLOW MEN SECTION IV
Eyes return here, except in opening lines where Eliot stresses eyes ARE NOT here -Eyes rep conscience, sense of justice, right and wrong -In post world society, there is none of that; hollow men are trying to convince themselves they escaped eyes here in land of 'broken jaws'
SIEGFRIED SASSOON
Father was Jewish, part of wealthy merchant family -Mother was Catholic and raised Sassoon -Joined army out of sense of patriotic duty -Time in army was marked by acts of bravery, awarded military cross
THE VERY END OF BYZANTIUM
Final lines he sits on golden bough, like bird; bird that reps circle of nature -He's not like bird, hes on a golden bough, like golden mosaics -On a spiral, not circle -Song of bird is important, unlike in 1st stanza where its just background noise -Tells 'of what is past, or passing, or to come'
'DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT'
Finest poem -Written for dying father -Title and 'Rage, rage against the dying of the light' are 2 of most quoted lines in all poetry
DOVER BEACH 1ST STANZA
Focuses on imagery over cliffs of Dover -Arnold pays attention to sound imagery at end of stanza
'SAILING TO BYZANTIUM'
Focuses on problems of old age, feelings out of place and irrelevant -"That is no country for old men"
THRUSH 1984
Hears song of thrush twice -Confuses him, thinks it is for someone but it sings just to sing -Winston has a problem w this bc it is non-existent in Party world -Reminder that there is world beyond control of BB; proles, thrush, nature are hope for future
MANKIND
Humanity huddles together by fires, trying to fend off cold -Question is whether dull, barren winter landscape is rep. of end of cent. or if Hardy sees bleakness and decay in England as a whole -Maybe both
SOREN KIERKEGAARD: FATHER OF EXISTENTIALISM
Individual is responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely in spite of obstacles and distractions (despair, anger, absurdity, alienation, boredom)
"THOSE WHO HAVE CROSSED WITHOUT DIRECT EYES"
Last stanza of Section I; reference to dead, since they crossed into Kingdoom of Dead -Whoever they are, they judge hollow men who make up society, they see them for their hollowness
INTEGRITY OF YOUR OWN MIND
Lesson: we should be wary of any manipulation of info and ideas -History has not been more true in America than now; objectivity of info is not an objective of news organizations -Being and intelligent, thinking individual means you go find most primary source of info -People in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia did not knowingly choose to live in dictatorship; they were manipulated by tainted info
EPIPHANY IN ARABY
Literary device within each ss as protagonists came to recognitions that changed their view of themselves or their social condition and sparking a reversal or change of heart -Negative one -Protagonist gives up in search for gift; realizes he doesnt need gifts to express feelings for Mangan's sister -Joyce is pointing out elusiveness of fulfillment
HOLLOW MEN SECTION III
Live in desert, not actually -World is barren, lifeless, arid -Still have things to pray to
RECESSIONAL 5TH STANZA
MISTAKEN TRUST IN OUR OWN POWER Kipling makes specific reference to military power, how we mistakenly think this will protect and sustain us -Tube and shar, gun and bomb are 'valiant dust that builds on dust' -Dust of battles layers on top of dust of other failed empires, of battle long ago; other kings who felt military might would preserve power and rule -God is only true guard of longevity and existence
CAUTIONARY NOTE IN 1984
Many believed Orwell was writing about 'evils of communism' -Experiments in non total. communism have been tried in various ways; French gov in 1980's under Francois Mitterance attempted socialist state that bordered on communism -Many countries have ministers and legislators who are communist but work w/in framework of democratic system -Communism and democracy not necessarily mutually exclusive
ILLUSION IN DOVER BEACH
Modern world offers illusion of beauty when really it offers 'neither joy, love, light, certitude, peace, or help for pain' -Reality is that we are on the 'darkling plain'; field of battle between good and evil-Ignorant armies of science, industry, culture. Instead, we need tradition, steadiness, and religion
LEST WE FORGET
Most famous line from poem; repeated at end of each stanza, w exception of last -Became rallying cry during WW1, simple inscription on various monuments to fallen soldiers -Often misquoted by American politicians who think it is about sacrifice that soldiers made for country -Actually a call for Britain to avoid being arrogant; 'lest we forget' the sacrifice of Christ; it is a prayer for humility
RUDYARD KIPLING
Most remembered for writing about Brit soldiers in India -Offered position of Poet Laureate and knighthood, declined both -Orwell called him 'prophet of British empire'
RIVER IN HOLLOW MEN
No ferryman, hollow men are trapped
STRUCTURE OF FERN HILL
No formal structure, sonnet or villanelle, but Thomas is sticking to standard form of his own -Stanza structure, 6-9 line stanza; each line has same number of syllables; 1st line of every stanza has 14 syllables -4th line of every stanza has 6 syllables
SOURCES FOR SAGE WRITER
Old Testament prophecy w 4 part pattern -Neoclassical satire, provides many sage's satiric techniques -Romantic conceptions of sincere yet alienated imaginative figure -Victorian Sermon Tradition
ARABY THEMES: COMMERCIALISM AND LOVE
One of Joyce's themes is criticism of commercialism of love -We as lovers seek to show love through things we buy and people who sell those things capitalize on our love -We think we can win someone's love through materialism but no
ART, YET AGAIN IN BYZANTIUM
One way spiral is created is through art, purpose of art -Art is 'artifice of eterntity' -Creation that lasts forever; teaches and informs us where we've been and what we've done
HOLLOW MEN SECTION IV: SHADOW
Only a shadow lies between potential and fruition, action and completion; this is where hollow men live -Hollow men have ideas, but cannot bring them to completion; they have motion but cant act on it -Shadow blocks completion; forced into 'in between' place
DOVER BEACH 4TH STANZA
Opens w appeal to reader, like opening stanza. Appeal for love -Some critics have read appeal as required gesture to reader before harshness of rest of stanza -Less cynical scholars have seen it as hope that all can stand together against modernity and ignorance
GOLDSTEIN
Orwell hints that Goldstein is an invention of the Party used to control the populace -Party's scapegoat -Ultimate symbol of Party manipulation, even if he was real, he has become a creation of the Party
GOLDEN COUNTRY 1984
Orwell is playing off pastoral tradition -Rolling hills and pastures -How serious is he? Is the pastoral past a myth, only fuels a fantasy that detracts from reality? Is W blinded by visions of Golden Country and therefore a protagonist
BYZANTIUM STANZA 2: SOUL/BODY/DUALITY
Paltry: small meager, petty, insignificant -Physicality of body is pointless -Old men are like clothes on a stick; empty of any substance-Soul still has power; 'unless statement' Body can still have relevance, if souls are still strong -"Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence" -Singing that gives soul life can only be gained by studying things we create that we think are great -"Monuments of its own magnificence' seems vain and self-centered
PARENTHETICAL 'POOR BEGGARS'
Parenthetical statements at end of each stanza meant to be ironic -At end of 2nd, he refers to British commoner, expected to die for queen and country as 'Victoria's sons' -Next points out while Victoria may order a ruler of a country in commonwealth to 'STOP', it's the soldiers, the commoners who actually have to do the stopping -Next refers to double meaning of blown: bugle in army being blown & poor beggars being blown up
PURGES IN STALINISM
Party purges throughout Stalin's rule. Routinely gave secret police thousands of ppl to arrest, torture, execute -Not only sought to root out anyone who might provide evidence of failure in his policies, but attempted to destroy entire populations (Jews and Gypsies) -Everyday citizens reported by neighbors/friends as enemies of state
'FERN HILL'
Poem celebrates childhood, specifically speaker's (probs poets) childhood -Thomas' connection to pastoral tradition -Like Marlowe's poem, this celebrates the simplicity of rural life
LIFE, DEATH, MORALITY
Poem is about inevitablity of death or we die, only decision is how -None of men's choices are life is meant to be seen as better or worse than others
"RECESSIONAL" 1897
Poem is departure from Kipling's usual themes that celebrated power and scope of Brit. empire -Kipling was concerned empire would fade like ones before it -His new concern is now prophetic; power of Brit Empire would begin to recede 20 yrs after poem was written
HOLLOW MEN SECTION I
Poem opens w theme of futility; actions of hollow men are like rats feet over broken glass -3 paradoxes; shape without form; suggests futitility, but flatness of hollow men; without depth -Uses men stuffed with straw dont have any meaningful substance, but still stuffed and bloated
IRREVERENT TONE IN WIDOW AT WINDSOR
Queen V was a beloved ruler, but Kipling doesnt hold back on criticism of crown, country, and her -Portrayed her as dangerous, someone to be left alone -Calls British flag 'that bloomin' old rag over'ead'
RECESSIONAL 1ST STANZA
REPEATED APPEAL TO GOD Refers to timelessness of God, in attempt to put age of Empire in context -Only by God's allowance that empire is allowed to thrive -'Over palm and pine'; reference to scope of Brit Empire where pine trees grow to where palm trees grow (We're everywhere)
DARKLING THRUSH 2ND STANZA: "THE ANCIENT GERM AND BIRTH"
Ref. to beginning of cent.; hope and promise that began the cent. -Could also be ref. to beginning of Victoria's reign -Promise was 'shrunken hard and dry' -Everyone is dull, unexcited
THOMAS HARDY
Remembered for novels, not poetry -Focused on problems created by industrialized Victorian society -Wished for more simplistic world
TELESCREENS
Rep. ubiquity of Party -Broadcast propaganda; message surrounds infiltrates all parts of life -Physical actualization of idea BB is watching you -BB is probs in invention too, but presence becomes real through telescreens
SINGING PROLE WOMAN
Reps. freedom Julia and WInston have attained in love affair -Hope for future, rep of proles hope for future. Mother earth: virile, tough, wide, beautiful -This is why book ends as it does. Winston is not hope for future, can't help but love big brother. Proles are hope
DO IT TO JULIA
Room 101 reps. fear in us all; mystery and existence of room inspires fear -Orwell is using fact that we all have fear (relatable) -Place where there is no darkness is ironic; Winston realizes the phrase is literal
LITERARY TECHNIQUE IN SAGE WRITERS
Sage writers saw everyone else as lost and reprobate -Used grotesque examples -Those found in contemporary life and those he invents as parables of satiric analogies -Ethos: sages try to convince audience by set of arguments on other views that state 'believe my even if my ideas strike you as bizarre bc I am trustworthy'
REFERENCE TO ART IN BYZANTIUM
Sages are standing in God's holy fire like golden mosaic on the wall; compared to art; art is equated to wisdom -Wants sages to be 'singing masters of my soul' -Art consumes physical 'dying animal' of body. What is left is spirit, intellect
EXPLICATION OF SASSOON
Sassoon uses 'ing' forms of verbs to rep on going nature of wirer's job; never ending -End of 1st stanza is slightly problematic; they have anger in their blood; is anger at enemy or futility of work? -Sassoon's anger w futility of continuing war
'THE WIRERS'
Sassoon uses job of writer as symbol of futility and senselessness of human loss -Wirers go out every night to repair breaks in wire that will be broken again next day -They get snagged and caught up on the things they are trynna fix -Becomes metaphor for war effort as whole
OWEN'S POETRY
Seen as most important of WWI poets -Graphic and realistic depiction of trench warfare and gas attacks place him beyond Sassoon -Began writing at young age, first attracted to Keats and Shelley (Romantics)
R&J ALLUSION HOLLOW MEN
Shakespeare's metaphor in reverse; Juliet refuses Romeo saying saints have lips made for prayer not kissing -But hollow men's lips are made for kissing so when they pray, they blaspheme, corruption
SYMBOLISTS YEATS
Sought to rep. 'absolute truths' indirectly -Believed certain concepts could only be truly defined representationally -Goal: clothe Ideal in a perceptible form -Sought to evade plain description and straight forward explanation
UNSEEN HOPE IN DARKLING THRUSH
Speaker can see no reason in anything he sees that could give him reason for hope -Believes in 'blessed hope' -Unfounded hope for new cent
SPEAKER VILLANELLE
Speaker is poet -Personal for Thomas -Wrote it for his father, addresses father directly in final stanza -Waits until very last stanza to say 'I'
ENDING OF BYZANTIUM
Speaker secedes he must preserve himself by letting soul take unnatural state -He becomes the art, golden mosaics he talks about in previous stanza
SPIRALS OF DIRECTION
Spiraling out of control -For Yeats, spirals are good unlike circle they can carry you to places -Byzantium, appreciation of old, both as people and time, creates spiral out of circle -By listening to sages, we cut circle and create spiral
COLLECTIVIZATION
Stalin sought to increase agricultural output through collectivizing farms, confiscating individual farms; forced farmers to work on huge state farms -Would burn personal farms belonging to Russian and Ukranian farmers -Refused to release grain collected in granaries (4-5 mil. ppl starved to death)
ARABY AMBIGUOUS ENDING
Story just ends -Joyce is trying to capture reality, a lot like the epiphany, there are no fireworks in irl -What might have been happy love story by someone else becomes bitter lesson in this story
LACK OF MEANING IN EXISTENTIALISM
Stresses there is no inherent meaning in world -As humans, we seek to warp non-meaning universe into meaningful material reality
DOVER BEACH 2ND STANZA
Stretches out to classical world -Poets refer back to Greeks as exemplars of Poetry and culture -Showing troubles of humanity are timeless, stretch to every great civilization
VICTORY GIN AND VICTORY CIGARETTES
Supposed to have calming effect but it does opp. for Winston -Ironic to name harmful things as a victory -Reinforcement of backwardness of society of 1984; things rarely make sense or do what they are supposed to
"CAUGHT IN SENSUAL MUSIC"
Symbol for all things youth became caught up in -Referring to generation gap
RECESSIONAL 2ND STANZA
TIMELESSNESS OF GOD Putting machinations of kings into context; like Ozym. but w God instead of Nature -Shouting and battle of kings die out, fade, but God is always there -God's 'ancient sacrifice' is always there (sacrifice of Christ)
'DOVER BEACH'
Theme: fear that long standing tradition and belief is under siege from new scientific discoveries
"WIDOW AT WINDSOR" 1892
Title refers to Queen Victoria, widow of Prince Albert -Written in Cockney dialect, meant to reflect speech of working class man -Meant to criticize human loss, particularly by poor and underclass, caused by spread of maintenance of empire
DYSTOPIAN LITERATURE
Unpleasant (repressive) society, propagandized as being utopia -Purely 20th cent. phenomenon
OWEN'S SONNET
Uses petrarchan sonnet structure to create octet-sestet division -Octet occurs on battlefield; dead; Sestet occurs back home; mourners -Shakespearean rhyme scheme -Owen screws up meter, created confusion, madness, like the war
"TAKES US TO VARIOUS WARS"
Vicky has cavalry horses, medical supplies, and lots of troops to expand empire -All to fight various wars to maintain empire -Pax Brittanica (Britain's peace), but Kipling knows peace is only in Europe, England still fights around globe to maintain control over colonies
TS ELIOT
Voice of modernist poetry -Criticism of world he sees around him as being shallow, materialistic, violent
RECESSIONAL 4TH STANZA
WARNING AGAINST ARROGANCE Focuses on thinking, speaking, too highly of ourselves -"Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe" -Kipling reminds us that praising our greatness draws us away from what we should truly praise: God -Must adhere to laws of God
RECESSIONAL 3RD STANZA
WERE NOT SPECIAL Reference to Nineveh and Tyre, ancient cities of empires -Nineveh's ruins had been discovered mid 19th cent. -Tyre was great port for Phoenicians in antiquity -Cities rep. ancient empire, particularly w Tyre, empires built around control of sea -However, they didnt last
SCARECROWS
What do hollow men do to stay out of hell and avoid judgement of those w direct eyes? Disguises -Scarecrows blow in direction of wind; 'behaving as wind behaves' Following direction of crowd, popular opinion
LAST NOTE OF KIPLING
While he was critical of empire and queen in his work, he had respect for country -Saw problems created by imperialism, for English men expected to defend it, and those colonized subjected to racism -Criticism is based more on militarization than on concept of empire as a whole. -He saw slowmilitary build-up over his lifetime, and knew it was unsustainable
LIFE AS A DAY
Writing about life as if it were a day (Sunrise is birth, night is death) -Sunset is moment of dying -Title is a plead to fight against death
ELIOT'S BELIEFS
Wrote 'Hollow Men' in midst of religious conversion to Anglicanism -Poem reflects conversion that world is without faith -This is how he sees post WWI Europe; world without faith or will to better itself, end of humanity