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浅析T.S.艾略特早期诗歌中的现代人形象(1)学毕(2)

2013-10-17 01:15 2.2 Gerontion--- a little old man full of hopelessness
2.2.1 The understanding of “Gerontion”
    In an unbearably dry day, in a decayed, wind-sieged day, there sits a hopeless little old man, waiting for the rain. Gerontion consists of two morphemes: Geront from Greek and a scornful affix “tion”.[13] Gerontion is not a person but one among many possible incarnations of the meaning of his name in Greek, “little old man.” The little old man who lives in the ruined house in windy space is a reflection of the people in T.S. Eliot’s time: brain-withered in Europe’s war-shattered civilization, longing for salvation.
2.2.2 The features of Gerontion as a character in “Gerontion”
    “Gerontion” was written in 1919---about one or two years after the First World War. “Gerontion” marks the growth of despair and disillusionment in the poem that eventually leads up to The Waste Land.[14] In that period, the Western civilization was decaying. The speaker in this poem is a little old man on the verge of death. He lives in a terrible place, throughout his life; he is a mediocre man all the time and accomplishes nothing. Gerontion might be the victim of the First World War. Besides, he is stuffed with his “history”.
“I was neither at hot gates (line3)/Nor fought in the warm rain (line4)/Nor knee deep in the salt marsh, heaving a cutlass, (line5)/Bitten by flies, fought.(line6)” Gerontion’s mind wanders backward, however, not upward, and then forward through a series of wars that Gerontion feels would have compensated him if he had been there to fight. Here‘hot gate’refers to the battle of Thermopylae in ancient Greece in 480 B.C. He thinks of history as a system of corridors ingeniously contrived to confuse and finally to corrupt the human race. When Gerontion compares himself with the great heroes and compares the things he does with the great events in the history, he finds himself so insignificant that it is impossible to get into the heaven after he dies. When one tries to recall his past, but only finds that nothing worthy of being remembered, he would be extremely sad. So does the little old man. He has realized the exhausting of his body and also his spiritual strength. The image of Gerontion is just the modern men in the early twentieth century: feeble, decayed, humble and insignificant, he does nothing good for the society while vainly hopes to get the salvation from the God. From here we can see Gerontion is a little old man, who has little to boast of about his past exploits. Gerontion has neither notable exploits for the nation in the war time nor magnificent and earth-shaking feat in the peace time. Till he dies, he is still with a “dry brain.” However, he has seen much of the world (people like Mr. Silvero, Hakagawa, Madame de Tornquist, Fraulein von Kulp, and knowledge of “whispering ambitious”, “vanities”, “unnatural vices” and “impudent crimes”). He is now at the end of his tether. （科教范文网http://fw.nseac.com）
The little old man’s personal feeling of sadness over his unimportance can be felt in every way “I an old man,(line15) / A dull head among windy spaces.(line16)” These lines suggest the general mood of despair for all people and all things in the western world. It’s Eliot’s personal feeling of disillusionment as well as the general despair of the people of Western Europe over the crisis of Western civilization.
This is also a contrast about the secular history of Europe between the splendid past and the dismal present. Gerontion symbolizes that the Western civilization has gone rotten. “Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero (line23)/With caressing hands, at Limoges (line24)/Who walked all night in the next room;(line25)/By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;(line26)/By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room/Shifting the candles (line27); Fraulein von Kulp (line28)”. These mysterious foreign figures who rise shadow-like in Gerontion’s mind are the inheritors of desolation.
Gerontion has already described himself as “an old man in a draughty house,” and his “house” of history has its corridors and passages and issues. “She gives when our attention is distracted (line37)/ And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions(line38)/That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late(line39)/What’s not believed in, or if still believed,(line40) /In memory only, reconsidered passion.(line41)” This is merely self-deception. Gerontion shifts the blame for his own situation from himself onto history: Gives too soon(line41)/Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with(line42)/Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think(line43)/ Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices(line44)/Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues(line45)/Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes(line46). According to Gerontion, neither passive fear nor active courage will save us, because history has duped us, perverting our heroic intentions. However, Gerontion’s understanding of history is a rationalization of his own incapability to act or feel. The narrator of Gerontion does not understand that his knowledge of history is his own “ideal construction” that the vision of historical chaos is a product of the mind that cannot unify the present and the past, and that history is not something separated from the life of the individual in the present.

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From this poem we can find some deliberate echoes of “Prufrock”. Prufrock’s hesitant movement towards the woman of his quest through labyrinthine streets is picked up in Gerontion’s movement through the labyrinth of history towards a protagonist who turns out surprisingly to be female and peculiarly sexual in the knowledge she promises: “I would meet you upon this honestly…(line54)/I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch(line59)/How should I use them for your closer contact?(line60)” Prufrock’s dandy vision of mermaids by the shore being matched by Gerontion’s more isolated vision of gull against the wind, remote and lost to man.[15]
Gerontion was a tragic figure after the First World War--- the time Europe was greatly damaged. The little old man might lose his son or daughter and he became a lonely man in the world. He had to face the rotten world and the lost of relatives. He cannot see any hope but becomes dismal and passionless gradually. “I have lost my sight, a smell, heating, taste and touch(line59); How should I use them for your closer contact? (line60)” From here we know Gerontion has nothing left. We can see Gerontion is too serious about his “history”, and he is stuffed by his “history”. After the war, he lost everything. The only thing he has is “pain”. He is absolutely hopeless and in despair. The only thing he can do is to sit in the decayed house, waiting for death.
2.3 The Hollow Men --- scarecrow-like modern men
2.3.1 Brief introduction of The Hollow Men
    The Hollow Men was written in 1925, a few years after the First World War. After we have observed Prufrock’s spiritual debate and incompetence to love, the little old man’s hopelessness, we will see the spiritual emptiness of modern men from The Hollow Men. This poem might be T.S. Eliot’s summary of the modern men whom he has described in the former two poems. In Eliot’s eyes, all the modern men in that period are without any soul, they are completely hollow men.

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    This poem is a comment on the moral and spiritual emptiness of society at that time, and indeed characteristic of the disillusionment after the First World War. The modern men are devoid of faith and spirituality.
2.3.2 The understanding of the epigraphs
    The hollow men are typical figures in this poem. The two epigraphs, “Mistah Kurtz --- he dead” and “A Penny for the Old Guy”, are two exemplary cases of the “hollow men”: Kurtz, the domineering imperialist agent finally dies miserably, lingering death, while the traitor Guy Fawkes, who tries to blow up the parliament building in 1605, is burned up on November 5 every year in the form of a stuffed effigy by children who go around begging for pennies to buy fireworks. In the former case, the “big” men feared by everybody turns out to be hollow and thoroughly contemptible, whereas in the latter case, the scarecrow figure of Old Guy is literally hollow, because he is stuffed. Here Eliot tries to represent two different types of “hollow men” in post-war Western world.[16]
2.3.3 The features of the hollow men
Its background is ‘the dead land’, and the major figure is the dead men without any motivation or any pursuit. They are spiritual empty just like the scarecrows that the farmers used to frighten the birds:” We are the hollow men(line1)/ We are the stuffed men(line2)/ Leaning together(line3)/ Headpiece filled with straw. Alas. (line4)” It is a portrait of those passionless and aimless folks who gather in the modern wasteland after the First World War. The scarecrow is appropriate to designate both the ineptness and spiritual flaccidity of the speaker and his inability to attain love. The figurative straw dummies suffer both physical and spiritual illness.
The hollow men’s “emptiness” in this poem has two implications: one refers to the spiritual emptiness, lack of pursue in spirit; the other refers to the people without any motivation, aimless, which can also be called spirit inertia. ”Shape without form, shade without color, (line11) / Paralyzed force, gesture without motion(line12)”. The lines reflect that the hollow men’s soul is frozen. According to Eliot, if people can devote the whole spirit and the life to the other world as the sage does, it’s a kind of happiness. If not, if they can put their ideals into practice firmly, even though they become the sinners in the end, it would also be a kind of richness.[17]

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In the second part of this poem the speaker confesses the impossibility of facing “the eyes,” even in dreams, in the dream kingdom of his world; and in his imagination he encounters only their symbolic counterparts—sunlight, a tree, voices in the wind. Here the lost eyes are the upbraiding eyes of incarnating his redemption: the speaker takes refuge in apathy; he desires to think of himself only as a scarecrow.
In T.S. Eliot’s opinion, the civilized people in the West are not really alive. So they are described to be living in “the dead land”, “the cactus land”, “this hollow valley”, “this broken jaw of our lost kingdom”, or “this beach of the tumid river.”[18] The hollow men might be about men during or just after the First World War. They are hollow men because they never have a chance to experience life. They are stuffed with violence. They could not escape the “shadow” of the war.
   In the fifth and last section the author points out the fine and not-so-fine contradictions of increasing complexity in modern life: “Between the idea (line72)/And the reality (line73)/Between the motion(line74)/And the act(line75)/Falls the Shadow. (line76)” The shadow often gives us a bad feeling. The modern men after the First World War might be still living in shadow; they lost their directions after the war; the sudden change from war to peace made them confused. The Western civilization was greatly damaged; they did not know what their future would be, and what kinds of fates they would have. The shadow also implies Prufrockian inertia that he is incapable of connecting imagination and reality. The “shadow” which falls between idea and reality, conception and creation, emotion and response, desire and spasm, potency and existence is the paralysis that seizes men who live in a completely subjective world. The shadow might hold back the hollow men when they have a sudden and good idea and attempt to do it.
In the end the hollow man says, “This is the way the world ends(line95)/This is the way the world ends(line96)/ This is the way the world ends(line97)/ Not with a bang but with a whimper. (line98)” This may be the poet’s prediction of the future fate of Western civilization and so the apathy of people. As a common person, he came into the world silently so does he leave the world. When the common man dies there is not a big deal heard around the world, for he is so negligible or insignificant. People go on with their lives as if nothing happened. No one would care for his death. He dies unnoticed by others. （科教作文网http://zw.ΝsΕAc.com发布）
In this poem, the speaker anticipates with dread “that final meeting”. The men grope together “In this last of meeting places”. The final section, in its generalized abstraction of all that has gone before, tells us “this is the world end.” At last, the hollow men cannot avoid death.
    After the War, the people were becoming empty in spirit. They had no beliefs and they were also afraid of those who had beliefs and wisdom. In fact, there were many people like the hollow men in the Western world after the First World War. They dare not to accept the reality. They had not any beliefs or souls. They will die unnoticed in the end.

3. The modern men revealed in T.S. Eliot’s early poetry
The theme of Eliot’s early poetry is death. The speakers in his early poems are the representative characters in the modern society during or after the First World War. All of these men suffer from spiritual crisis. They are hopeless; the only thing they can do is to wait for death.
Prufrock is a middle-aged, ineffectual, sorrowful, tragic twentieth century Western man. He is possibly the modern intellectual who is divided between passion and timidity, between desire and importance. The modern men like Prufrock are born with certain shortcomings. They are timid, hesitant, self-deceiving, unconfident, sensitive and anxious. However, the very root of their pains is based on their timidity. Somehow they might be the victims of the rotten Western civilization. Their individualities are stuffed by the Western civilization. In a genteel society, under such environment, the modern men like Prufrock feel lonely, dissimilated. They also attempt to break away from the genteel society but fail in despair.
Gerontion, the little old man, is a less stable and less identifiable persona than any speakers in Eliot’s early poems. At the same time, what he speaks has more menace because it echoes more hollowly.[19] Gerontion is stuffed by his “history”. He is a typical character after the First World War. For the damage of the war, the modern men like Gerontion become hopeless and lonely, facing the rotten and decayed world; the modern men see no hope but become dismal. They are the creation of the rotten world. 

The hollow men are stuffed with straws. The modern men like the hollow men are empty in spirit and lead insignificant life. They appear spiritually dead; they are only flesh and blood without souls. They have no beliefs and they are also afraid of those who have beliefs and wisdom. In fact, there are many people like the hollow men in the Western world just after the First World War. They dare not to accept the reality. They have not any beliefs or souls. They will die in the end.
They all suffer from spiritual emptiness. In such society condition for such person as Prufrock, Gerontion and the hollow men who are born with fatal shortcomings, there is only the same fate waiting for them that is death.

4. Conclusion
From the above analyses of the modern figures in T.S. Eliot’s early poems, we can see the writing style of the author. T.S. Eliot is a perceptive poet. He has many life experiences. With his special insight, he sees society clearly and reveals the real portraits of modern men to us. Prufrock, stuffed by the Puritanism and the Western civilization, is full of conflicts in his innermost being. He is planning to visit his lover but he is so hesitant and timid that he does not make any closer contact at all. His fate is clear. The modern men like Prufrock are also the real hollow men; they are also empty in spirit. Gerontion, a little old man, in the decayed house, remembering his trivial and insignificant things in the past, is hopeless; he is waiting for death. The hollow men are stuffed with straws like the scarecrows in the field without any souls. They suffer from spiritual emptiness, fearing the truth. These figures are all the “hollow men” without anything. Prufrock, Gerontion and the hollow men are the incarnations of the modern men during and after the First World War.
As usual, works written in a certain society environment are usually the mirrors to reflect the society situation in that period. T.S. Eliot’s poems have no exception. He is a modernist writer. His poems are the mirrors to reveal the modern men in that period. He reveals the spiritual crisis of modern people. The world we are living now is full of competition, and many people suffer from the spiritual emptiness. We ought to learn to adjust to the modern world and try not to become the people like hollow men, Prufrock and Gerontion. They are going to die in the end. Hell is their destination.

Bibliography

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[13]张剑.干燥的大脑的思索：-— 析T.S. 艾略特《枯叟》的拯救主题 [J]. 外国文学，1997.4,P77
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[19]同[15]注，P113

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