T.S. Eliot and the Objective Correlative

The author of American history, uses many colors to symbolize things in the story. In this story, it uses colors such as gray, green, and flower colors (red, yellow, purple,) to symbolize the emotions throughout the story. Colors may not have too much meaning at first Justin glance, but if you go back and read it over, you may be able to pick up on something that you didn’t he first time.

In the short story, “Marigolds,” by Eugenia Collier, the theme that is shown through the story is, “Beauty can be found even in the darkest times.” An example of this theme is represented through Lizabeth’s thoughts after she tears apart Miss Lottie’s marigolds. As Miss Lottie looms over Lizabeth, she thinks, “The witch was no longer a witch but only a broken old woman who had dared to create beauty in the midst of ugliness and sterility. She had been born in squalor and lived in it all her life” (Collier 223). This shows Lizabeth’s realization that the “witch” she had known for all her childhood years was simply a woman who wanted to create beauty through her wretched condition.

By looking through a critical lens at T Stearns Eliot’s poetry in light of his 20th century, modernist context, much is revealed about his personal and the rapidly evolving societal beliefs of that era. Through his repeating motif of time and fragmentation throughout his poems, Eliot reveals the prevalent feelings of isolation while in society along with the need to hide one’s feelings and emotions in this degrading society. His exploration of the use of ambiguity and stream of consciousness by Eliot, which is a characteristic of modernist artists, allows his work to resound over decades while being interpreted and differently understood by every audience that encounters them.

On my poster the color purple shows up multiple times in the text to show the reader a back round message. The color purple is an archetype that represents the un natural and supernatural. One of the supernatural occurrences in the poem is when the narrator states “ And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain thrilled me” in the quote that color purple shows up. After those curtains shook in the wind supernatural things occurred. I used this color in my poster because many supernatural events occur throughout the play. In my blurb I used the word “mystic” to describe the sound of the echo. The word mystic defines as often relating

In The Great Gatsby, being with Daisy is Gatsby’s goal. A daisy is a white flower, and this places the color white as a color that represents Daisy. This is ironic, as although Daisy is pure in Gatsby’s, she is in fact tainted by he marriage with Tom Buchanan. Furthermore, flowers are ephemeral, which suggests that the affair that Gatsby and Daisy have will be brief, and will eventually die. In Miss Julie, flowers represent sexuality and courtship. Lilacs are present on the set of this play, and symbolise youthful love. Lilacs bring Jean and Miss Julie together. However, just like daisies, lilacs are ephemeral and eventually die. This symbolises the death of Jean’s opportunity to climb the “slippery trunk” through Miss Julie. Gatsby and Jean’s dreams are destined to die from the very

Alice Walker’s masterpiece, The Color Purple, uses ordinary things such as clothes, colors, jobs, and money as strong symbolism. In this book, pants symbolize independence. Pants change the way society views and treats a person. They also convey that a person is strong, confident, free, and equal to others. Alice Walker shows the reader how wearing pants can have a big effect on a person’s life, especially if that person is a woman in the early twentieth century.

The colors that Douglas uses in this piece which are, purple, gold, black, orange, and yellow, hold some meaning to them. Purple is associated with power, ambition, wisdom, and dignity. Douglas uses both light purple, which is used to show femininity, and dark purple, which can evoke gloomy feelings and is associated to spiritual fulfillment. Gold symbolizes divine, wisdom, and courage. It also evokes the feeling of prestige. Yellow is a warm color that is associated with energy, happiness, and intellect. The color yellow can be useful in attracting attention which can bring most of the attention to important elements. But the yellow that Douglas

Scott Fitzgerald uses many different examples of symbolism, which was very popular during the 1920’s, throughout his book to show different feelings and attitudes. The two main colors he uses is green and white. While green stands for ideas and choices that Gatsby has during the novel. White represents a hidden life that all of the characters lie about and live in.

Marie de France lived in a time when social graces were paramount to a good reputation, lordships and to securing good marriages. A woman was considered less valuable if she lost her virginity; a wife was subjected to her feudal lord, father, brother or son after her husband’s death. According to Angela Sandison’s article “The Role of Women in the Middle Ages”, this was because in the Middle Ages the Church and the aristocracy controlled public opinion and the legal system. These authorities of the times believed a woman’s place was in a submissive role to a man. In The Lay of the Nightingale, we will see how this social and religious hierarchy will impact the behaviors of the three people involved.

Many colors are represented and shown throughout the story The Great Gatsby. These color each represent small details and even big details. They are shown as important details to the story and how they are portrayed by the reader. Each color is portrayed in a character, idea or even a event that takes place. The color symbolism in The Great Gatsby is represented by the colors green, black, and purple.

            I think this style of writing is also a reflection of Eliot's feelings about the time.  Eliot was more of a Modernist than Victorian poet and as such held to beliefs like: there is no higher power in the universe, man is alone on this planet to govern his own affairs, everyone is truly alone, there is no unity, no support, for we live in a godless heartless world (Stacey Donohue).  The floating, confusing, jumbled mix of emotions and directions in this poem mirrors the modernist image of society.

The Modern Poetry Era (1914-1945) was a time filled with many new and revolutionary poets. Of these poets was a man named T.S. Eliot, whom was considered by many to be the most significant poet of his time.

Eliot is not solely criticising modern life in the poem, it also serves as a reflection of Eliot’s social context and his own life, a product of its time.

The end of The Hollow Men can only be the beginning of a deep and long reflection for thoughtful readers. T.S. Eliot, who always believed that in his end is his beginning, died and left his verse full of hidden messages to be understood, and codes to be deciphered. It is this complexity, which is at the heart of modernism as a literary movement, that makes of Eliot’s poetry very typically modernist. As Ezra Pound once famously stated, Eliot truly did “modernize himself”. Although his poetry was subject to important transformations over the course of his

T.S. Eliot in the twentieth-century wrote what is today widely-regarded as one of the most important text of modernist poems, “The Waste Land.” This poem evaluates many aspects of ancient and contemporary culture and customs, and how the contemporary culture has degraded into a wasteland. In “The Waste Land,” Eliot conjures, through allusions to multiple religions and works of literature in five separate sections, a fragmented and seemingly disjointed poem. Eliot repeatedly alludes to western and eastern cultural foundation blocks to illustrate the cultural degradation prevalent in the modern era of England. One specific eastern example is brought up in the third section of the poem, which T.S. Eliot names “Fire Sermon,” an allusion to