Practice HSC Advanced English Module B comparative essay responding to:
What in your view are the distinctive features in Eliot’s poetry that convey the experience of disconnection? In your response, analyse the stylistic and language features.
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Through the use of the modernist distinctive features of literary fragmentation and voice, TS Eliot is able
to convey the experience of social disconnection as a reaction to the rapid rise of industrialistion and
societal dissillusionment. TS Eliot’s oeuvre of poetry, characterised by fragmentation and the flaneur,
gives powerful voice to humanity’s disconnection and its characteristic of fearful uncertainty. Composed
in 1915, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock discusses how individuals, paralysed by superficial anxieties
of modernist constructs, are unable to form meaningful connections, resulting in isolation and alienation.
Consequently, Rhapsody on a Windy Night, composed in 1911, highlights the futility of memory and
living within a disconnected and disillusioned society through the lens of an industrialised world. Both
these texts employ the distinctive features of literary fragmentation and voice to convey the experience of
social disconnection in the rise of modernism.
TS Eliot’s Prufrock uses the distinctive feature of literary fragmentation to convey the paralysis in
individuals due to the rise of modernism, and how this henceforth results in social disconnection. Eliot
draws on the 19th century Victorian morality in Britain, where the outlined acceptible social behaviours
shunned undesirable aspects of humanity and led to the destruction of the repressed person. The
utilisation of fragmentation, a modernist poetic feature, subverts Romantic literature which relied on
linearity, metre, and consistent rhyme schemes, thus portraying the fractured and decaying nature of
modern life. Eliot’s deviation from the free verse of the poem with the repetition of the isolated rhymping
couplet “In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo” conveys the social disconnection
and inferiority experienced by Prufrock. The allusion to a Renaissance artist exemplifies the superficial
nature of upper-class society and it’s role in the dying modern world. Further literary fragmentation is
seen in the interjecting, judgemental dialogue criticising Prufrock’s appearance, “(They will say: “How
his hair is growing thin!”)”, further exacerbating his social alienation and disconnection, after his inability
to join the room of women. Thus, through the utilisation of literary fragments, Eliot portrays how
paralysis in individuals due to the rise of modernism resulted in social disconnection.
Consequently, Rhapsody uses the distinctive feature of fragmentation in highlighting the futility of
memory, as well as the experience of living within a disconnected and disillusioned society. Eliot portrays
the conflict between internal thoughts and external experiences, informed by Henri Bergson’s lectures on
philosophy that “the past exists in the present which contains the future”, to prompt audiences to revolve
humanity’s fragmentation for future psychological fulfilment. Eliot establishes a time structure throughout
the poem, beginning at “Twelve o’clock” and ending at four, carrying bxoth temporal and spatial qualities
where the persona notes the time at each interval with their own experiences; the persona’s subconscious
and non-linear style of reminiscing marked by sudden runcated sentences embodies the fragmented nature
of memories. Eliot subverts the typically upbeat and enthusiastic musical, “Rhapsody”, using twisted
images of a ‘cat’, ‘child’ and ‘crab’ to reveal the disorder and fragmentation of modern society, reinforced
by the disjointed, rhapsody-like structure of the poem. Furthermore, the poem is written in vers libre, a
style used by Eliot in many of his poems, and the social disconnection to society is shown thoroughly
through the scattered rhymes. Eliot's distinctive use of fragmented rhyme in "Put your shoes at the door,
sleep, prepare for life/The last twist of the knife" paired with macabre imagery jars the reader, alluding to
the common experience of ontological death caused by urban alienation. The persona's futile search for
connection within a modern world of routine and disconnection is made clear when he returns to his
lonely room in the poem's penultimate lines. Thus, by the employment of the distinct, modernist feature
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