Powerful literature holds a mirror to society, exposing the flaws and the complexities of

human behaviour. Eliot's oeuvre captures the ennui and entropic state of the modern world
where the rapid rise in industrialization and urbanisation lead to moral and spiritual vacuity.
These notions are evident in Eliot’s stream of consciousness poem ‘The Love-Song of J
Alfred Prufrock’ (1915) examines the self doubt and anxiety of the modern individual to offer
a chilling perspective on the superficiality and materialism as a result of industrial capitalism.
Likewise, Eliot’s pessimistic poem ‘The Hollow Men’ (1925) explores the spiritual vacuity of
man through the powerful motif of scarecrows encapsulating his perception that modernist
society was filled with futile facades. Furthermore, Eliot’s critique of modern society
culminates in his religious allegory ‘Journey of the Magi’ (1927) which presents a striking
portrayal of attaining salvation through spiritual redemption as an arduous yet immensely
rewarding journey. It is the distinctive nuances of Eliot's oeuvre that allows him to capture the
damaged nature of the human psyche.

Eliot examines the existential crisis of the modern man who struggles to find connection in a
world saturated with materialism and superficiality. In his poem ‘The Love Song of J Alfred
Prufrock’, influenced by Irving Babbit’s rejection of the Utopian nature of Romanticism, Eliot
offers a stark criticism of the alienation brought about by the rapid rise of industralisation and
urbanisation. The opening intertextuality of the epigraph to Dante’s Inferno establishes Eliot’s
view of urban life as hellish which is further conveyed by the inverted Dantesque structure of
the poem illustrating the persona’s state of entrapment within this hell-like society. Eliot
rejects Romantic notions through his intentional employment of the paradoxical title "Love
Song" and use of romantic imagery, evoked through the flaneur motif in the stanza, "Let us
go you and I" which is subverted in the subsequent simile, "like a patient etherized upon a
table," conveying the fractured and fragmented nature of the modern man. Eliot continues
his critique of the superficiality and materialism of modern society in the refrain, “Here the
women come and go talking of Michelangelo” conveying man’s inability to connect and find
existential purpose due to society’s vacuous existence. This is furthered through the
synecdoche, “prepare a face to meet the faces you meet,” which exposes the shallow,
factitious nature of modernist society, establishing the mask motif as a distinctive feature of
Eliot’s work. The poem capitalises on these feelings of dread through Eliot's employment of
the Shakespearean allusion "I am not Prince Hamlet" suggesting the passivity of the modern
man unable to find existential meaning, and instead metaphorically labelling himself as “an
easy tool” and “one that will do”, in order to arouse a powerful sense of motivation for the
audience to challenge their entrapment as merely a cog in the wheel of industrialisation. The
final metaphor “and we drown” illuminates the inescapable, bathetic nature of modern
existence that was brought about by the anxieties that plagued society at the fin de siècle.
Examination of Eliot’s early poetry illuminates the innately lonely nature of the modern world.

Eliot further captures the vacuous existence of the modern man whose fractured psyche is
reflected in his fragmented poem, 'The Hollow Men'. The poem encapsulates the desolation
of modern society in the aftermath of World War One where the spiritually vacuous existence
resulted in no solace or hope. Eliot’s illuminates his disillusionment with the Western world
through the epigraph an intertextual reference to Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz “Mistah Kurtz - he
dead” and to Guy Fawkes “A penny for the Old Guy”, which alludes to the descent of
Western culture into fragments and ruins. The opening oxymoronic couplet “we are the
hollow men/we are the stuffed men” conveys spiritual emptiness as the root cause of
societal ruin. Moreover, Eliot uses synecdoche and enjambment "Eyes I dare not meet in
dreams/ In death’s dream kingdom", representing the deep fears of man stuck in a state of
purgatory, avoiding the grim, unnatural reality of the industrial world. Eliot further criticises
the modern man’s avoidance of reality through parallelism of contradictory elements in
"Shape without form, shade without colour, / Paralysed force, gesture without motion"
emphasising the disconnection from reality and the desolation of individuals lacking solace
from the afterlife. Eliot’s truncation of the Lord’s Prayer in the final lines of the poem, “For
Thine is the Kingdom”, employs disintegrating syntax to mirror the moral and spiritual
emptiness of the modern world, suggesting that redemption and existential meaning may be
found through religious enlightenment. Despite this allusion, the bathetic final lines, “This is
the way the world ends/not with a whimper but a bang” conveys Eliot pessimism toward the
cynical human psyche under the state of ennui after World War One and suggests that it will
continue unless the audience enhances their own personal spirituality. Eliot's poetry captures
the desolation of the modern world in the aftermath of the atrocities of the great war
conveying a society in ennui searching for existential meaning.

Eliot suggests that solace can be found through spiritual enlightenment in his allegory, 'The
Journey of the Magi'. Eliot’s belief in spirituality was inspired by his own personal conversion
to Anglicanism, The opening allusion to Lacelot Andrews Christmas address in the
alliterative, "a cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of year” conveys the desperate
state of the modern world in religious vacuity. Eliot further uses low modality and an authorial
intrusion “it was (you might say) satisfactory” to engender a sense of disappointment, as
indifference remains despite the transcendence from modernist superficiality at the end of
the spiritual journey. However, the personification of birth “There was a Birth, certainly”
captures the hopefulness which spirituality can bring. Eliot then promotes the merit of
escaping modernist paralysis with the metaphor “With an alien people clutching their gods,”
which belittles those stuck in the superficial cycle of the Western world as ‘aliens’ who are
attached to the false ‘god’ of consumerism, encouraging audiences to lead a less shallow
existence. While suggesting salvation can offer solace, the final biblical allusion “I should be
glad of another death” suggests that secular society is still in an irreparable moral state.
Hence, Eliot reveals the unfulfilling nature of materialism, suggesting that existential
meaning can only be achieved through spiritual enlightenment

Through a critical study of Eliot’s oeuvre, it demonstrates the inherently flawed and
unfulfilling nature of modern society, whilst optimistically offering a potential escape from the
monotonous cycle of modern life. This gives audiences the ability to truly discover existential
meaning, which Eliot posits can only be derived from spiritual enlightenment. It is Eliot’s
masterful manipulation of language and form whilst examining the hardships of man
entrapped in a state of stasis that contribute to the textual integrity and aesthetic quality of
his work.