American Literature
Part I: Identify Three Symbols in the Readings From This Week and Discuss What you Think Those Symbols Mean in the Context of the Story or Poem n Which They are Found.
In the Big Two Hearted River parts I and II, the river is the first symbol. In part 1, Nick can always count on it since it will always be there. The river, in this case, gives Nick a sense of belonging just like a friend. Carrying a person’s heart as used by E. E. Cummings is symbolic in the sense that it is not possible to take it physically. It is used to show the love the partners have for each other and that the poet is always thinking about his lover even when she is away. On the other hand, water is a symbol of both life and death in T. S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men. Water has the ability to restore life and fertility by quenching, but it may also lead to death and loss. At the end of the poem, the poet warns by saying ‘we drown’ which shows no matter how good water is it can also be dangerous.
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Eliot, What are Your Impressions of the "Modern Man?"
Moral Decay. The decay of culture has thrived with modernism. Both of them have described how cruel a man can be for example in the battlefields according to Hemingway. Eliot describes how social evils have come along with the “modern man” in terms of Spiritual paralysis where people have become stone-hearted, vacuity, and empty. According to The Hollow Men, a man is compared to a dead land and the stone images. Modernism also brought about racial and class division reducing unity among individuals.
Lack of Confidence. The modern man does not understand himself. It is evident in T.S. Eliot's the Love Song where he describes how people do things as part of a group and not individuals. This is the main hindrance to the personal achievement, for instance, Prufrock is held back by his psychological fear of rejection, and the characters in 'Preludes' are physically