TS Eliot's 'The Love Song'

English Journey Essay

Journeys lead to greater understanding. They can be physical, inner or imaginative and can allow one to gain self-awareness, discover their flaws and weaknesses as well as gain spiritual enlightenment. That journeys can lead to greater understanding can be seen in TS Eliot’s poem The Love Song, Philip Otto Rouge artwork Dawn, Harwood’s poem In the Park and Victor Kellesher’s book cover Ivory trail.

Journeys lead to greater understanding. This can be seen in The Love Song… where Prufrock gains self-awareness of his isolated and insignificant status. He experienced both a physical and imaginative journey. Prufrock is a man who is a mid aged man, single and a pessimist. He isolates himself and is afraid of making
decisions, as he is worried that he would be making a fool and mockery of himself. Being a pessimist he always thinks negatively about how he lives.

The inner journey, in which Prufrock takes the reader reveals the different sides of him, such as his lack of confidence and also his dissatisfaction in the way he lives his life. The imagination of Prufrock leads him to make notes about mermaids, referring them to the Greek myth and how they would sing and lure sailors to their death. In this line Prufrock shows an inferiority complex as he states that the mermaids would not sing to him, as he is not important enough.

An invitation from Prufock to the reader to a unnamed destination establishes and initiates a physical journey
; through the physical journey he leads the reader to various places in the city where there are cheap hotels surrounded by lower-class restaurants. Due to the surrounding it leads Prufrock to think of the “overwhelming question”. In the first stanza a physical journey is evident. The departure time would be during evenings “When evening is spread out against the like a patient etherised upon a table”. Prufrock compares the sky to a patient through simile. The feeling of helplessness is brought out with the word “etherised”. As the poem goes on personification becomes evident in “Streets that follow like a tedious argument”, describing the streets they are walking on as very dull and long similar to a long argument between people. The contrast of the streets to an argument also reflects on the use of simile.

Journeys lead to greater understanding. Philip Otto Rouge, who takes the viewer through an imaginative journey, can perceive this in the painting “Dawn”. The journey is of a religious one, as the lighting in the painting hints a form of the cross, and its innocence and purity of the journey. Also, while light can reflect the knowledge and realisation one gains when undertaking an imaginative journey, the light becomes a symbol of a journey of enlightenment. With a frameless blue sky at the top of the painting it implies that this imaginative journey has no set boundary therefore it is limitless and contains endless possibilities. It is what the individual’s eye and mind perceives it.

The angels that are represented as children painted in white and somewhat transparent symbolising the purity and innocence of childhood. With the transparency of the angels suggesting that there is no impurity seen, as they are holy. The musical instruments, also suggest the possibility that this imaginative journey is of a harmonious one.

With the women positioned in the centre of the painting, it also shows her relationship with earth and heaven as she is in between them both. Being positioned close to the centre of the cross indicates that she is holy. This woman can be seen portrayed as Eve who was made by God to live on earth and accompany Adam. She is can be conveyed as a symbol of fertility as she was the first woman and also took part in the start of the cycle of human life on earth. This links earth and heaven together as a journey. The small star at the top of the painting, which can be faintly seen, represents the hope and desire of purity that was once been lost due to the sins of Eve. Therefore, Dawn exhibits the greater understanding through the journeys as it is of a religious one that contains enlightenment, but it may not all be harmonious and pure as can be seen when looked further in depth.

Journeys can lead to greater understanding, as journey can lead to another journey. Through a physical journey, the protagonist from In the Park experiences an inner journey, which allows her to reflect on motherhood. An inner journey can lead to the reflection of one’s identity, reminisce, unfulfilled potential, self-destruction and low self-esteem.

The opening use of a monosyllabic sentence of her mundane life triggers her inner journey to self-reflection.
With harsh words such as “tug” it resembles her being pulled down and “aimless patterns” represents her life having no direction or goal in which she can follow. The use of past tense in the word “loved” shows she is not experiencing joyful emotions now, but instead “-“ the anxiousness or shock on her reflection in her current situation. “too late” the enjambment forces her to go through an inner journey unwillingly. After meeting the person she has once loved and a superficial conversation starts, she begins to realise the difference between them. Being self-conscious of herself the phrase “but for the grace of God” has been inverted from a normal situation to a negative one. And “…” emphasises the shock going through her head, acting as a harsh stimulus of her realisation to life. With the description of “flickering light” in line 9, symbolising the fading of hope to retain her past life. The superficial conversation about the children, which have taken over her life is in a hopeful tone as if it was a self-reassurance about her life. Though the last imagery given of her journey is her nursing her baby, a parody of Mother Mary holding baby Jesus. She is stripped of her identity and emotions in her inner journey as “They have eaten me alive”. Through her journey the protagonist in In the Park comes to greater understanding of her situation and position in life after going through her physical and inner
journey.