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A Country Churchyard By Thomas Gray

Satisfactory Essays

Right Place, Wrong Time
(Three Messages From the Poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray)

More often than not, authors of the pre-enlightenment/enlightenment era wrote pieces of art that were critiquing society in one form or another. There are many types of works that provide you with the ability to write this critique, while still getting the message across. There is satire, directly showing the critique, or many times using other characters that can display society of certain areas. Back in the enlightenment era, there was usually a lot of talk about the social class difference. It was insane the split that was seen between the poverty stricken people, and the wealthy high class people. There wasn’t even really an in between either, it was simply just the two classes. The author Thomas Gray was an English poet that was very good at critiquing the ways of society in his time. One of his most famous poems is called Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. In this story he is criticizing the fact that those in a state of poverty were looked at completely different than others. To begin with, he really points out that those in a state of poverty are looked at as animals. These people don’t even get the time of day from the wealthier people, they aren’t good enough to them. The narrator of the story realizes this when he is in a churchyard and all of the buried bodies don’t have any significance to their grave. As soon as you see a wealthy person’s grave, it

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