The poem of Tomas Eliot, “Rhapsody on a Windy Night,” represents such phenomena as mind, memory, and time experienced by the main character of a wanderer going down the streets. The context is full of frightfulness and hopelessness because the time continues to go on desperately. Life and its sense or the absence of sense are reflected in the poem. An individual characterizes the world in accordance with their feelings and mood, so the internal and external worlds of personality are interconnected and influence each other.
Eliot gathers together various pieces of themes. He states that modern life is full of depression and darkness, and the purposeless twisting actions represent the past and the future. The following lines prove it: “…A crowd of twisted things; a twisted branch upon the beach…” (Eliot 25). The poem’s main character is a speaker whose thoughts are blurred and scattered, making him wander purposelessly through frightful streets, observing weird scenes. The gloomy night does not allow us to forget about depressed life on earth. The poem’s first lines represent the lack of purpose and meaning of a lifetime. “Twelve o’clock. Along the reaches of the street. Held in a lunar synthesis…” (Eliot 1). The moon, as a symbol of night, starts to reign and brings madness, which is compared to the “Madman,” who “Shakes a dead geranium” (Eliot 12). The speaker tells about the streets at different times of the night and describes how these surroundings impact his inner world. Everything seems to happen only in his mind, but the reflection goes into the external world. “Half-past one. The street lamp sputtered. The street lamp muttered…” (Eliot 13). The narrator continues his story, emphasizing the sameness of the world surrounding him. The lamps are the symbols of things that exist in the world but do not change and make people not change. Such a tendency leads readers to the realization of depression. It can be noted that the author uses the repetition called parallel syntax, through which gloomy people’s appearance and actions are emphasized – “…that woman who hesitates toward you…the border of her dress is torn and stained with sand…” (Eliot 18-21). The constant sameness is always highlighted in the poem. The next paragraph mainly describes the character’s mood and the people surrounding him in that specific environment.
The poem continues to prove to the readers that the surrounding of the narrator is woeful with the following lines: “…the world gave up the secret of its skeleton, stiff and white…” (Eliot 29). Such images enrich the whole picture of the character’s mood, hinting that the world has lost its uniqueness and interest. The world drowns in the depression. The same implication can be found in the next part of the poem. It starts by pointing to a new time, “Half-past two” (Eliot 34). The speaker shows that the things representing the people are desperate. “Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter…” (Eliot 36). The cat is in the same state as everyone around the speaker. The cat has nothing to take from this world and takes at least what the streets can offer – the gutter. The word “gutter” may be perceived by readers as “guts,” which has a patronymic sense and defines the disgust of people’s lifetime. The author again emphasizes the hopelessness of existence in this world.
The notion of madness and depression are integral in Eliot’s poem. The character wanders through the streets in the night, representing the mood state and the perception of the world. The dark, depressed, and sometimes insane actions of the poem’s characters lead to the conclusion that contemporary people have no purpose in their lives and the world has no meaning in the present time and the future, while depression’s existence prevails.
Works Cited
Eliot, Tomas Stearns. Poems. Bill Brewer and David Widger, 2021. Project Gutenberg eBook Poems, Web.