What's his problem

What exactly is J Alfred Prufrock’s problem in the Love song by TS Elliot? The main problem Prufrock’s face is his lack of confidence and low self esteem. Prufrock seems to be worrying too much about how people will judge him like a insect specimen and examine every bits of his detail. “And indeed there will be time to wonder Do I Dare and Do I dare. Time to turn back and descend the stair. With a bald spot in the middle of my hair (They will say “How his hair is growing thin!” My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modes but asserted by a simple pin. (They will say “But how his arms and legs are thin)” Through his text, we can feel Prufrock that he is probably a middle age man who desire to have relationship (most likely with women) yet he is afraid the pain of being rejected and criticize for his growing age. Prufrock is probably just too nervous to ask someone out because he may be rejected before in the past. This negative self-talk of Prufrock leads him to go in the vicious negative cycle that will eventually bring him to depression and a state of stagnation that he will become a social outcast and fear social relationship. 

Poetry's Social Function

TS Elliot wrote “I think it’s important that every people should have its own poetry, not simply for those who enjoy poetry, but because it actually makes a difference to the society as whole. That means to people who do not enjoy poetry, unless people go on producing great authors and especially great poets, their language and culture will deteriorates and perhaps become absorbed in a stronger one.” I think his assertion maybe over generalized. I agree that poetry does in fact have some sort of social benefits that it allows people to learn the classic literature and their old way of using perfectly accurate grammatical speeches. However, it is too much of an assertion to say that people who do not end up being great authors may in the end causing our language and culture to deteriorate. In some form or another our culture and language are slowly engulf and overwhelmed by the increasing profanity and slangs that seems to dominate in current pop music and movies. Our society may end up rotten this way. However the purpose of writing is to express one’s inner feeling and voice to the world. If the author finds that only through swearing can best express his or her feeling and ideas, we shouldn’t be stopping them. 

War and Economics

What are some of the similarities between the last century and this century? Well, certainly there are lots similarities yet changes between them. As time move on, technologies improve, allowing new weapons and mass media communication devices to exploit the war with violence and propaganda. Although being through two devastating war, people never seems to remember the destructive effect of war that violence all around the world are still occurring without any easing. As for economic crises, in the early 21 century, we face a global economic down time that people all over the world are being unemployed and the stock markets are not doing so well. Although it was not as serious as the Great Depression in the early 1900s, this depression still causes a great amount of problem and issues around the world. In the future, historian may view our century as the century of rapid social network that internet and social network websites allow people to share information fast and globally that unify the earth together through a huge social network web. With search engines on internet, we no longer need big heavy books of encyclopedia to check information that maybe already too outdated. However, we will soon face new challenges as new issue evolve with improving technology and social network.

No Ideas but in things

One group of Modern poets called the imagists wanted to describe commonplace subjects just as they are. Different from most of the contemporary poets of the nineteenth century, who believed that poetry should be about certain lofty poetic subject, the imagists believed that poetry should try to describe things like a snap shot of common ordinary subject manner that can be visualize instead of some abstract ideas such as love or friendship. One famous imagist, William Carlos William wrote poems with scenes that can be immediately visualize through his simple description with no flowery allusions or metaphors. His descriptions often occur within the 5 senses and describe things through the point sharply and precisely. These imagists created an innovative way to write poetry that they accelerate the common. Their poems are usually short within 20 lines and can be about basically anything such as a note left on the refrigerator or simple description of an object. Their poems lack any strict meter and are in free verse. Today, we can see many poems like this that people wrote poems about common ordinary things. Although we usually stick to the old fashion poetry that we write ode to our favorite things or writing love poems, imagists created a new road allowing people to write poem creatively without any limits.  

Historical Influence

I’m quite familiar with the whole cause of World War I and how it ended which eventually led to the start of world war II. World War I started in Europe due to the assassination of the duke of Austria by the black hands of Serbia which led to a whole turmoil of alliance that brought the whole Europe into war. Ended in 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed after the war, leaving Germany to take all of the blame for the start of war and forced Germany to compensate for the losses in war. Eventually, this led to the Second World War with Nazi-Germany led by Adolf Hitler to fight against the Allies. On the other side of the world, Japan attack Pearl Harbor, leaving United States in no choice but to join this inevitable war. Besides war, serious of events also happen in the United States during these 30 or 40 years. For example, the first commercial radio broadcast in America was in 1920. In 1927, Charles A Lindberg completes the first transatlantic solo flight by airplane. In 1929, stock market crashed and led to the Great Depression. In 1933, President Roosevelt created the New Deal Program to counter the Great Depression by developing public infrastructure such as the Hover Dame. 

Social influence-Entertainment

For most people in the 1930’s, entertainments were not as versatile as entertainment today that they were limited to listening to radio or going to movies over a week. Their movies were like TV series today that people went to Movie Theater to watch episodes of films and enjoy cartoons or news of the war. The movies were black and white and are silent that people watched bunch of moving picture with actors having dialogue with only a few being shown on screen in subtitle. At home, people enjoy every night sitting on their couch listening to the radio broadcast. During 1930, over two-third of the American household own at least 1 radio. Unlike present radio, the size of the radio was as big as a TV. People relied on radio for mostly news and stories which are also played like TV series that stories are separated into episodes. As technology improves, entertainment has more and more variety that present day we can enjoy surfing on Internet, checking status on social network, chatting with people from all over the globe or looking at videos on YouTube. Digital games were invented that we play Wii or Xbox 360 over the weekend or simply flash game up on face book. We are truly lucky to be born in the 21^st century. 

Make it new

As Ezra Pound once said, “Make it new! Art is a joyous thing.”  We make art because we have fun and joy while making it. No one would want to look at art that are cliché with similar style repeating over and over again. We are constantly attracted to new things and want to be unique in a way that breaks away from conventional thinking or style. As technology improves such as the invention of camera, realistic painting began to lose its popularity that camera can always better capture the world exactly as it is presented. Although photographs during the early 1900s are still black and white with no color, people no longer need painter to realistically paint objects or person that photographs are much cheaper and faster to produce. Therefore artist began to make new art that diverge from realism. Entering modernism, artist began to paint abstract things and ideas and putting more of a personal emotion into their art. Instead of trying to be realistic, artist such as Picasso painted the world with a new and unique style that people or object look different from reality. These kind of innovative art attract people’s attention and allow artist to have more freedom and room to explore art with creativity.