Preludes Analysis

     I

The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps.


     II

The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.


     III

You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters,
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed's edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.


     IV

His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

.: :.

There is not a woman in stanza III. Just read the poem: it's one person's observations of his immediate environs. The narrators diction says somehing about his mood, which is likely loneliness, hesitation.

| Posted on 2009-11-06 | by a guest

.: :.

GUys do yuh all know something its nothing about prostitutes. The poem is all about the busy life.

| Posted on 2009-09-22 | by a guest

.: :.

i think the women in stanza III is a prostitute but im not entirely sure."in the palm of both soiled hands" could imply that her soul was tainted and impure due to the way she sells herself to earn money. "you had such a vision of the streets as the street hardly understands" could imply that she sees the streets from a different perspective as opposed to other people since she sees it from the perspective of a prostitute, and has probably walked the streets looking for clients. the carriage in stanza I could also be a client waiting for her.

| Posted on 2009-09-15 | by a guest

.: :.

in this poem , what drives the characters from day to day?

| Posted on 2009-09-08 | by a guest

.: :.

I have to complete an essay tomorrow, in class, on Eliot and I have to say some of the points raised in this analysis are extremely helpful.
My thoughts lead me to believe that Eliot is once again suggesting/implying that the woman is a prostitute. I agree that when she looks out at the street and sees people walking past and that she knows their secrets, it is a strong suggestion that it's because they have previously been a client.
Thanky you to you all.

| Posted on 2009-08-25 | by a guest

.: :.

it is about a prositute. look at some of his interview on youtube and on the internt etc!.

| Posted on 2009-05-25 | by a guest

.: :.

T.S Eliot’s Preludes, is one of his most prominent poems because it presents his view of society at that time using concrete objects and images to metaphorically explore the nature of life and society. In this poem, we discover society as corrupt and desolate going through a cycle of meaningless routine where people bare a false hope of a divine source overlooking and protecting humanity.
The title itself holds significant meaning. A prelude in general and particularly in a musical sense characterizes an introduction to something. This is suggesting that the characteristics of society we are provided with in this poem are merely an introduction to what we should be viewing society like. The first stanza introduces the tone of the poem with a description of a typical street from an omniscient point of view. We are first given the impression of a desolate, corrupt and exhausted society through use of a variety of verbs like x is accumulation of verbs is heavily supported through a the use of alliteration of the “s” sound in words like x This technique evokes our sense of smell imagining the picture Eliot is describing. Throughout the first stanza, we are given the suggestion of the presence of people though it is not actually ever stated. This is evident in the mentioning of “smell of steaks…feet.” This effectively communicates to us that this is a fragmented world where nothing is whole. The darkness of the first stanza is concluded with a pause, creating anticipation followed by the line “then the lighting of the lamps…” This line gives us a feeling of hope as the darkness is contrasted with the mentioning of light.
However, the start of the second stanza marks the next morning yet the tone is still identical to that of the first. Eliot stresses out the fact that it is now morning, the possibility of a new start, through the use of personification. But we are soon to discover that nothing has changed. The lines that follow it give us the feeling of a “hangover.” This is depicted by the mentioning of “faint stale smells of beer from the sawdust-trampled streets…” Once again the alliteration of “s” reminds us of the sense of smell of the image we are given. The rest of the stanza continues the motif of emptiness created in the first stanza with the extensive use of “muddy feet…hands.” The last line introduces a change in perspective as we now focus on a more personal view, assuming the point of view of one particular person.
The shift to the second person immediately leads us to become more involved with the situation. The first three lines depict a haunted and restless night using the repetition of “you” and the accumulation x whole stanza constructs a shattered and desolate life, strengthening the picture painted from the earlier stanzas. This is portrayed by the “sordid images of which your soul was constituted…” The woman in this stanza even goes through an epiphany, in which we are shown that she herself makes a discovery of life to be meaningless. This opinion of society is reflected as an opinion shared by the whole society since this particular woman is representative of everyone because she is just one of “a thousand furnished rooms.”
The final part of the poem embraces the climax of the poem’s message and wraps up what is stated. After three stanzas of describing a failing society, this stanza suggests it is an ongoing cycle. The view is now switched to another particular person, a man this time. The alliteration of the “s” is reintroduced here in the first line “soul stretched tight across the skies…” Eliot points out the action of ‘stretching’ to suggest a sense of pain and agony created by restlessness. This idea could also be extended to almost make it seem like the man is vulnerable and fragile since his soul is personificated to be “stretching tight.” The accumulation of “four and five and six o’clock” infers a rhythm and a busy ongoing routine which society goes through, almost like in a mechanical way. This further outlines how society is so meaningless since we are forced to go through the same routine everyday. The “evening newspapers” is a reference to the people who travel in public transport everyday and reading the paper in the evening, a routine many people share.
The final three lines are very dramatic as Eliot reveals that people are constantly “assured of certain certainties” outlining the lack of uniqueness among society and yet again explaining how we are part of a meaningless routine. The sharpness of the following statement “conscience of a blackened world” is extremely heartbreaking. Eliot for the first time in the poem no longer uses a metaphor to bring across his message but instead makes a definite statement about the fate of society and ultimately, the world. This rather harsh statement gives us the total impression that there is no hope left in society and that we all live in a doomed world with nothing to save us, a truth we, as the reader, are forced to discover and accept. This forms a climax in the poem as we share the despair in the words that conclude his opinion.
However, the next stanza directly contrasts this lack of hope. The perspective changes to the first person with a very personal view. His mentioning of “the notion of some infinitely gentle infinitely suffering thing” is a reference to Jesus, a divine source, whom many people of society rely on for hope. Eliot is stating that he is succumbing himself to the hope of a god to save him and society. This denotes that this is exactly what people think of for hope, a divine intervention of some sort to save humanity. But Eliot quickly dismisses this source of hope in the final concluding stanza. Using an extremely harsh and savage tone, Eliot totally disregards the hope of a god saving the world. This yet again brings us back to the tone of a sense of hopelessness, as the world has no one to save it. The use of the world “revolves” tells us that society is still undergoing a continuous process, a reminder of the idea of a meaningless, mechanic routine which society goes through. The very last line “gathering fuel in vacant lots” is a very bleak and terror-filled tone, which the poem concludes on. The ‘vacant lots’ brings us back to the first stanza, a street where the society is corrupt, desolate and fragmented.
Eliot’s Preludes, is a poem that expresses his view of society as a hopeless world where the streets are lonely, shattered and exhausted and its people are mechanical, going through a constant, meaningless routine that lacks vividness and uniqueness. Discoveries are forced upon the reader as we are faced with the harsh reality of society. Divine sources are what people believe in for hope but he dismisses this idea as well, stating that it doesn’t exist and that no one will save this world from its doomed state. And so, with this in mind we truly discover what our world faces and how there is no god to save us.
By: Tigrex
copyright Feb 2009

| Posted on 2009-02-15 | by a guest

.: :.

I dont reeli fink its abt a prostitute as much as it would be exciting if it was. lol XD

| Posted on 2009-02-15 | by a guest

.: :.

A teacher who thinks Eliot does not write about prostitutes? Better to look at the poems first and then decide, rather than come to them with preconceived ideas. At the very least he writes quite a lot about casual sex and usually with a sense of disgust. 'Sweeney Erect' is set in a brothel or at least a very unrespectable boarding-house, for instance. Now as to the last comment, Eliot does not say that anyone who tosses a blanket off the bed etc is a prostitute - he uses the picture to *suggest* something that he doesn't say. The woman isn't with a client at the point of the poem, she is literally waiting for sleep not sex - but Eliot uses language which suggests unenthusiastic sex, and hence (together with the 'thousand sordid images') that this has some relevance to the woman's life. This part of the poem is set at the beginning of the night, not just before she gets up; she then goes to sleep and watches 'the *night* revealing' her life in her dreams; it is only after this that dawn comes.
I don't think however that she knows 'dirty secrets' about the street - all the sordidness is in the description of the surroundings and in her dreams. What she sees, suddenly and for no apparent reason and even in squalid surroundings, is a vision (note the word) of the inner essence of the street (and its inhabitants), a sort of mystical experience which anticipates the poet's own vision of an 'infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing'. Even in such circumstances, Eliot is saying, you can have that sort of transcendent experience. This is how the world really is, even if most of the time we don't recognise it. But of course the vision only lasts for a moment, and the closing words of this part of the poem bring us back to poverty and squalor.

| Posted on 2008-11-11 | by a guest

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I think that there is not enough evidence to support the notion that the woman in the third stanza is a prostitute, just because of the suggestive way "You tossed a blanket from the bed,/You lay upon your back, and waited;". I usually toss the blanket and lie waiting for a while in bed before I get up, that does not make me a prostitute? As for the thousand sordid images/Of which your soul constituted;" well the first two stanzas a generalization of the city and the people (or aspects of persons i.e. feet and hands)are fragmented, mechanical and routine. As if city life consumes a person to a point that there is nothing left but bits and pieces of what a person use to be. The second stanza talks about the masquerades, the pretence of people in the city and that could also be a reason for the sordid images-that living in the city has somehow poisoned and polluted its inhabitants. When I read this poem I cannot help but think of William Blake's London because it has the some bleak outlook of city life a place where there is no communal life, a place of isolation and alienation. And taking into consideration that this poem form part of modernism movement it moves away from the glorified idyllic look of city life and portrays a dark, sordid underworld that was usually ignored by the earlier poet. Therefore I think the woman in the third stanza is more poor than a prostitute and as for the yellow sole of her feet, well 19 century England or America hygiene was not that prevalent. It also emphasize the bleakness, hopelessness that consumes the inhabitants of a city because they life in squalid situation even the smells of steaks is followed by grimy images of burnt-out, scraps, vacant, broken and lonely depressing images. No wonder the woman does not want to get out of bed and she tosses the blanket aside and just lay there. From the above images there is nothing to motivate getting up and doing something. Everything is the same mechanical robotic routine, with no sign of vitality, if anything sign at all of life it is artifice and pretentious.

| Posted on 2008-09-18 | by a guest

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I had the exact same interpretation of Prelude III being a poem about a prostitute. I told my teacher the interpretation and she flat out said "no" due to the fact that T.S Elliot does not write about prostitutes. Although, it still doesnt change my interpretation of it. It could also just be about a poor woman dreaming. As she dozes off, the thousand sordid images that he speaks of are probably of her dreams of a life she wish she had. Then when the world comes back, this is her waking up to reality. It seems she is living in a place she does not wish to live, hence why she "waited" to doze off and continue her dream of this imaginary life and escape reality again. But going back to the prostitute interpretation, when it says "The thousand sordid images/Of which your soul was constituted/They flickered against the ceiling." it could mean that the flickering of the lights are caused by the "client" on top which casts a shadow over her also causing the quick flashes of "the thousand sordid images". I'm not sure.

| Posted on 2008-08-12 | by a guest

.: fdafdsfds :.

First, some observations about technique.
From the first stanza,
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
There's a pun here that works effectively with enjambment when you read it out loud i.e. a gusty shower raps (conveying the sound of raindrops) and then, running on and taking on a different meaning, a gusty shower wraps the grimy scraps of withered leaves about your feet.
I agree with Dreamer Idiot, the sibilants in the first stanza, does add to the mood of the rain. Throughout the poem, the repetitive 's' sounds tend to lull the reader/listener, the way listening to white noise tends to make you fall asleep... which makes the ending of the poem even more of a punch!
I feel that some of the alliteration adds to the richness of the imagery as an onomatopoetic — words that which sounds suggest/imitate the sound it describes — device: the smell of steaks in passageways, a lonely cab-horse steams and stamps — the hissing sound of the esses invokes the sound of steaks on the grill and of the rain steaming off the horse's back; the showers beat on broken blinds — "bup! bup! bup!"
The internal rhymes within the poem adds to the musical qualities of this poem, something that struck me from the first time I read it. For example, in the second stanza:
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
While the first stanza builds some energy with staccato alliterations, the second stanza uses more assonance, which, in my opinion, slows the poem's pace a bit, taking cue from the last line of stanza I, the rolling lighting of the lamps.
The repetitive 'o' sounds in the first line, followed by faint and stale, and the stressed 'e's in street, feet, and coffee. Further on, we find masquerades/shades and resumes/rooms ... and so on.
In the first two stanzas the poem's narrator remains detached, and rather than describing human beings, only describes the muddy feet and hands (synecdoche... now that's a word of the day).
Then in the third one, he suddenly rounds up on a poor woman waking up in the morning with three lines starting with the word 'you' that draws the reader in:
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
Who is this woman? Dreamer Idiot thinks it's the narrator speaking of himself but lets explore a different interpretation: perhaps she is a prostitute, hence the 'dirty' hands and yellow soles of feet (a symptom of disease maybe, or could be just rough calloused feet)? The first half of the stanza is certainly suggestive... toss the blanket on the bed, and lie waiting and dozing away to escape as a thousand men come to visit over the nights.
The thousand sordid images ... flickered against the ceiling — perhaps shadows by a bedside lamp.
I only put forward this interpretation because of the lines "You had such a vision of the street/As the street hardly understands;", which suggests that she knows some dirty secrets about the people walking in the street downstairs. And there is the personage of the light creeping through the shutters, as opposed to the image of sunlight boldly streaming through, as if the room is a place more suitable for darkness.
... but, no, an unha

| Posted on 2008-06-09 | by a guest

.: :.

First, some observations about technique.
From the first stanza,
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
There's a pun here that works effectively with enjambment when you read it out loud i.e. a gusty shower raps (conveying the sound of raindrops) and then, running on and taking on a different meaning, a gusty shower wraps the grimy scraps of withered leaves about your feet.
I agree with Dreamer Idiot, the sibilants in the first stanza, does add to the mood of the rain. Throughout the poem, the repetitive 's' sounds tend to lull the reader/listener, the way listening to white noise tends to make you fall asleep... which makes the ending of the poem even more of a punch!
I feel that some of the alliteration adds to the richness of the imagery as an onomatopoetic — words that which sounds suggest/imitate the sound it describes — device: the smell of steaks in passageways, a lonely cab-horse steams and stamps — the hissing sound of the esses invokes the sound of steaks on the grill and of the rain steaming off the horse's back; the showers beat on broken blinds — "bup! bup! bup!"
The internal rhymes within the poem adds to the musical qualities of this poem, something that struck me from the first time I read it. For example, in the second stanza:
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
While the first stanza builds some energy with staccato alliterations, the second stanza uses more assonance, which, in my opinion, slows the poem's pace a bit, taking cue from the last line of stanza I, the rolling lighting of the lamps.
The repetitive 'o' sounds in the first line, followed by faint and stale, and the stressed 'e's in street, feet, and coffee. Further on, we find masquerades/shades and resumes/rooms ... and so on.
In the first two stanzas the poem's narrator remains detached, and rather than describing human beings, only describes the muddy feet and hands (synecdoche... now that's a word of the day).
Then in the third one, he suddenly rounds up on a poor woman waking up in the morning with three lines starting with the word 'you' that draws the reader in:
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
Who is this woman? Dreamer Idiot thinks it's the narrator speaking of himself but lets explore a different interpretation: perhaps she is a prostitute, hence the 'dirty' hands and yellow soles of feet (a symptom of disease maybe, or could be just rough calloused feet)? The first half of the stanza is certainly suggestive... toss the blanket on the bed, and lie waiting and dozing away to escape as a thousand men come to visit over the nights.
The thousand sordid images ... flickered against the ceiling — perhaps shadows by a bedside lamp.
I only put forward this interpretation because of the lines "You had such a vision of the street/As the street hardly understands;", which suggests that she knows some dirty secrets about the people walking in the street downstairs. And there is the personage of the light creeping through the shutters, as opposed to the image of sunlight boldly streaming through, as if the room is a place more suitable for darkness.
... but, no, an unha

| Posted on 2008-06-09 | by a guest