Introduction
People migrate to urban areas with the hope of improving their lives. Urban areas promise a better life with good jobs. This promise has seen many people move into urban areas in huge numbers. Unfortunately, when they get to the urban areas they become disillusioned because their expectations are dashed. They fail to get jobs and thus cannot afford decent houses to live in. They are forced to live in squalor environments on the outskirts of the city. This paper will endeavor to look at the portrayal of the urban environment by T.S Elliot, Carl Sandberg and Anzia Yezierska.
T.S Eliot
Eliot was born in 1888 in St. Louis Missouri in the US. His family had migrated from Britain. In Eliot’s work, we are able to see how he perceives the urban environment. He broke from the romantic tradition and his work focused on reality. He wrote about problems that were being experienced in modern life. He is able to do so through the characters in his work. For example, in his poem The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock we are able to see the cruel urban environment. Prufrock lives in a harsh as well as a cruel environment. This kind of urban environment makes him feel alienated. He lives in a dirty environment in the streets and slums (Samross, para. 2).
The urban environment is full of frustrations that are brought about by modern life. Through Prufrock, we see the bareness and the mental tension in the life of the modern man living in an urban area. In the poem, Elliot paints the environment through the use of symbolism. The patient in the poem depicts Prufrock’s state of mind. The patient is conscious but is unaware of anything. This shows that many people in such urban environments are oblivious of many things going on around them. In addition, he uses the symbol of chain to show the many streets in the urban area. These streets are dirty and thus the environment is unhealthy. This will lead the urban dwellers to fall sick yet they do not have the money to seek medical attention (Samross, para 3).
In the poem, Savonarola by his mother Elliot makes a point about the way modern life has altered the way of life of the modern man. People have to work longer hours to meet their basic needs and thus do not have time to appreciate the little things that make life interesting (Hanief, 62)
Carl Sandberg
Sandberg was born to Swedish immigrants in Illinois. He grew up and developed an interest in writing. His work depicts the reality of the urban environment. This is captured well in Chicago Poems. This work has a humanistic rendering of the urban environment. In this environment, the traditional values have been lost. This is because of the increasing industrialization as well as materialism. Modern American society has failed to live up to its promise that hard work pays by bringing spiritual as well as material rewards.
In his works, he paints the reality of life as he had broken from romanticism. His work captures the ordinary life of people. He refers to ordinary things such as the marketplace, railroad yards, and factory and so on. He does this through characters that capture the stark life of the working class. In this poem, Chicago describes the kind of businesses in Chicago and the low life in it. The young men are half-dressed and this could symbolize poverty (Chicago, p.1).
Anzia Yezierska
Anzia was born in 1880 and her family immigrated to America ten years later. In her short story, “America and I” she shares her views about America. In the story, a young female immigrant arrives in America and has a dream of achieving something out of her hard work. However, when she arrives she is welcomed in the reality of the treatment of immigrants. She is not welcomed in the American culture as she had expected. She comes to America with inadequate money, language skills, clothing and training. Her disillusionment is seen when she realizes it is not easy to make it in America and she has to find another way of making it.
She takes a job as a maid and her employer fails to pay for her services although she had to work very hard. This shows that hard work does not necessarily pay. She is forced to keeping working hard though she felt as if the work only left stones in her heart. To free herself from financial bondage she would have to live in the harsh reality.
Her work focused on the social problems faced by the urban poor. In her book Bread Givers, we see the struggle of a Jewish family that has immigrated to America. The family came to America so that they could escape the harsh life at home. The women in the family soon find out that life on the lower side of the town is no different from the life they had in shells back in their home country.
In her novel Hungry Hearts, she tells a story about a hard-worked lonely woman (Anzia, xxv). She lived in the lower East Side. She represents the many Jewish immigrants who were living in squalor conditions. In addition, the story My own People Anzia tells the story of poor immigrants who were caught between hunger, desire, hope, flight and imprisonment. Young women are employed in the sewing business to sew buttons on clothes they cannot afford to buy.
There are pawnbrokers who take advantage of the poor. There are also exploitative men who take advantage of women. Through this picture of lowly people, Anzia tells the story of people who live in urban areas yet they live in deplorable conditions. They are the poor heartbroken and only hope that one day they will be able to live like the rest of the Americans.
Conclusion
The three writers paint the social problems encountered by the urban poor. They have captured their physical and emotional struggles. They are people who are dehumanized by their living conditions. They cannot afford basic things like food and clothing. They are hungry and are forced to take on odd jobs to earn a living. Unfortunately, those jobs cannot meet their needs and thus they continue living in deplorable conditions in a vicious cycle. Their spirits are almost broken as we can see in the Poem A love Song for Prufrock. Prufrock has a death wish because he does not see the meaning of life. He is willing to die than live for nothing. The urban poor need to be helped by the government and other willing people so that they can live dignified lives as they are human beings.
Works cited
Anzia, Yezierska. Hungry Hearts. New York: Penguin Classics, 1997.
“Chicago” Cardinalis Etext Press. 2009. Web.
Hanief, Mohammad. The dynamics of criticism in T.S. Eliot. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2000.
Samross, A.R. “Alfred Prufrock-T.S.Eliot.” Scribd. 2009. Web.