Life and death dictate everyone’s lives: life because it leads to death and death because it is inevitable. To understand the modern treatment of death an analysis of modernist poetry is important. Wallace Stevens and T.S. Elliot were both modernist poets and hope to bring a change in society. “Sunday Morning” and “The Hollow Men” give insight into the notions of modernity concerning death.
The title “Sunday Morning” implies the Christian holiday of Easter, “the holy hush of ancient sacrifice.” The main character of the poem contemplates the idea of death and religion. She is skipping out on going to Church and is enjoying and relaxing over breakfast when the thought of an “old catastrophe” encroaches upon her. She thinks about Christianity, the concept of divinity, and the ultimate perishing of all things human and nonhuman.
She looks at her breakfast and the bird in front of her on a pathway towards entropy “winding across wide water, without sound.” She parallels this observation with her own life like “wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulcher.” She is thinking about the concept of Eternal life in Christianity and that maybe she should go to Church because it is a supposed portal to escape being perished.
Her thoughts go over to Palestine which is the grave site of Jesus and that it is “not the porch of spirits lingering.” She debates with herself the concept of divinity and whether it exists. Through the description of nature Stevens shows that nature has parts of heaven in it because it is cherished like certain aspects of heaven. She contemplates that if we view things differently we can view them as bridges and not barriers such as the sky which should be a bridge to divinity.
The modern view of death depends on a person. According to her, the Christian belief is that the world is a place that keeps people from reaching divinity but she argues that the world should serve as a place that leads to divinity in heaven.
She talks about birds and how they scan their territory and examine the area is like a human being looking into religion and finding reasons to believe in all the concepts or to go against them. She wonders what happens when someone decides or reaches the conclusion that there is no God. This would lead to the destruction of the idea of heaven and hell that define the lives of people so strictly. She says that although this could be a conclusion she still craves “an imperishable bliss”.
The answer to all her questions is death. Everything perishes except death. People die, food rots, water evaporates and the seasons change. Death comes to everything except itself. The second answer is bliss because once a person fulfills and wish or a desire he puts an end to the initial desire. Fulfilling an idea kills desire henceforth fulfillment is a death too.
She understands that to move on to the next life such as the one in paradise a person has to die first. She says that “death is the mother of beauty” and that a change of the seasons, a change of the living to the dead, a change of the climate, a change of opinions represents the death of the precedent idea or circumstance. Without this death, there can be no advancement or evolution of the human mind and the spirit. With change comes beauty because if Spring was always Spring and there was no Fall no one would ever appreciate its beauty. One thing has to end for the other to exist and to be appreciated. The change represents death and death gives us beauty.
The entire poem reflects on the modernist view of death and the idea that is not inescapable but that does not mean it is a bad thing. Death is inevitable and the human mind has a thirst for some sort of imperishable bliss no matter what conclusions they form. Just because death is inevitable does not mean we should not enjoy life. Life is different from death because in the former we have a choice. We can go down any path we chose like the woman chooses not to go to Church. We can also choose to go down other paths but death should not dictate our lives, instead, it should help us live better because it is beautiful in the best form.
T.S. Elliot was a modernist poet and he tried to sway his readers and help them reexamine their philosophy of life. “The Hollow Men” is written in the first person so that the reader is drawn into the hypocrisies in the world and can understand it closely. Death and spirituality are the main focus of this poem and how people view it. His poem lists all the things that people do wrong such as being hypocritical and not caring for others. Steven’s poem talks about a woman who willingly does not go to Church after contemplating the many aspects of her Christian religion.
She knows that she has to die one day and that she would be a part of an “imperishable bliss” but she wishes to get there on her terms. Elliot talks about “the hollow men” as people who have no souls. The people that he talks about are the ones who do go to Church every Sunday but never truly obey the teachings of Christ.
He talks about the dead and uses their eyes to convey the different symbols of life. “Direct eyes” means that people have to battle death face to face such as on a battlefield and have been unable to prevent it. “Eyes I dare not meet in dreams” represent fear. “The Hollow Men” are the ones without a soul, the ones without feeling, and the ones who commit crimes without thinking twice. People don’t feel guilty once they do something wrong and a person who has no fear is the one that should be feared the most because he is capable of doing anything. The narrator speaks of these immoral people and that he does not even want to meet them in his dreams.
When the poet leaves out the presence of eyes it represents the people who do not care. In other words, everyone has eyes except some people are blind to the things that do not benefit them. He talks about people not learning from history and repeating the same mistakes even though they know the chaos their actions cause to humanity. He uses eyes as a metaphor for the soul a human being posses since they are the windows to it.
Like the notion in Steven’s poem death is inevitable and the immoral and soul-less people will die too. Towards the end of the poem, the scarecrow in the field represents Jesus on the cross and suffering for mankind. “The hollow men” recite prayers because it is a part of religion but they are unable to do that because they have drifted so far away from religion. They try to recite but they don’t know the proper words and most have them have forgotten the prayers.
The whole poem represents all the people in the world and especially in that era who were a part of all the wars and crimes that were ongoing. He wanted to influence people and make them rethink the way they spent living and not be hollow on this inside because eventually everyone would have to die and people would be questioned about it at the Day of Judgment.
Both Stevens and Elliot hoped to present their ideas and opinions in hopes of helping people find the light and becoming good humanitarians. Both the poems revolve around the concept of death and present many ideas. Stevens’s poem presents death as a beautiful thing that is made beautiful because of its inevitability. Elliot’s poem also recognizes that human death is inevitable that people should right their wrongs before approaching that limit.