How Does Yeats Portray The Destruction Of Society?

People have foretold the end of the world for centuries, illustrating great destruction and dilapidation. The 1920’s, a time period full of these conjectures. World War 1 had just ended and the great depression would soon strike. What better time period than this to foresee the end times? One such apocalyptic prediction during this time period surfaced in the form of a poem, The Second Coming, written by William Butler Yeats.Though a rebellious view, the poem depicts a world falling apart due to its exposure to Christianity. He exposes us to a world which keeps progressing forward in time, the farther the world travels, the more it disintegrates. Through his work, The Second Coming, Yeats depicts the destruction of society resulting from Christianity’s
presence through the use of paradox, dark imagery, and allusion.

Yeats uses paradox to reveal the destruction of society as the world travels through time.
The first line in The Second Coming reads, “Turning and turning in the widening gyre”(1). The “gyre” Yeats refers to, represents two spirals in the shape of a cone, one inside the other. The idea being that the world is turning on the spiral heading towards the larger end, and once reached the world will start again at the inner spiral of the second cone. Yeats takes advantage of this illustration by using it to reveal that as the world grows farther away from the center, the more arduous a task holding it together becomes. Yeats then underscores the disconnect between the people of Earth using yet another paradox. Yeats states that, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity” (7). The world is falling apart. People who know what they want to change about the world have no desire to work for the change they so desperately crave. While those who have a passion and drive, yearning to do the work, don’t know what they want to change, only know that something must change. And indeed, something must change. As the it continues its journey along the gyre the world cannot avoid falling to
pieces.
Yeats uses dark imagery to portray the ideas of destruction, decay, and obliteration in his poem. One of the most significant examples presents itself when Yeats writes, “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned;”(5). The key phrases, “blood-dimmed tide” and “innocence is drowned”, instantly send chills down the spine. The phrases have an eerie and ominous energy. The blood-dimmed tide, a wave of bloodshed. An event resulting in millions of deaths, such as World War Ⅰ. The violence of World War Ⅰ has rended the innocence of the country, continent, and world. Yeats paints a picture of bloodshed destroying innocence. Once again using dark imagery to display destruction Yeats provides yet another hair-raising phrase. Yeats declares that, “The darkness drops again;” (18). At first glance the phrase seems insignificant. Upon further inspection however, its gravity becomes explicit. In using the word “again”, Yeats returns to the idea of the gyre, although by this time the transition to the inner cone is presently underway. He then uses negative imagery to veil the transition in darkness. A collapsed world in chaos spiraling back for a second dosage.
Yeats then alludes to Christianity to insinuate its responsibility for the world’s decay.
The first allusion arrives early in the second stanza, “Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the second coming is at hand;”(9). If anything in the poem were to be classified as obvious, it would be the reference to the Bible in these two lines. Christianity often refers to the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ simply as the second coming. The connection is explicit. Surely, the end of the world has arrived. The crisis and doubt in the world will come to an end; but eradicating this crisis comes at the cost of the increased crisis and devastation promised by The Second Coming. So, the end of the world is indeed caused by the christian Second Coming. but perhaps there is joy in the annihilation of society, and inevitably earth, as it brings an end to the suffering. The second example of allusion in The Second Coming holds within it perhaps some of the most essential lines in the poem. Within these lines Yeats prophesies, “That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by rocking cradle, and what rough beast, its hour come round at last slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” (19-22). After twenty centuries of sleep the rough beast has awoken from its slumber.The beast embodies the characteristics of the Sphinx, a pagan figure with strength, and ferocity. Instead of the christ expected, a harsh, malevolent beast greets the world. The beast the world
deserves. In a sense, the Anti-christ. The Second Coming of Christianity has brought on the end of society, and the end of the world.
The destruction of society and Earth that Christianity has evoked, the event foretold for centuries has occurred. William Butler Yeats has adeptly weaved a vast knowledge of literary devices such as paradox, imagery, and allusion into The Second Coming, to hint at Christianity’s accountability and role in the awakening of a beast. The world has survived its first brush with death; but in patience death waits, for he knows that an endless journey awaits anyone on the gyre’s path. At some point Earth will once again reach the end of the gyre. The world must change her ways, the best must find a passionate intensity to fight for a change. In the end we will receive what we deserve, so the gyre reaches its terminus, and the desolation of Earth is imminent, do you want to stare into the eyes the merciful Lord of Christianity, or at its enemy an unforgiving beast?