by Axtech » 3/26/2006, 3:10 pm
Isolated and dissociated from the rest of society, the outcast is alone, perceiving the world as an outsider. The expression of such alienation is a common aspect of twentieth century English literature. Alienation is manifested in many forms of modernist writings, and it is most often used to expose the flaws of society by describing them from the more objective perception of an outsider. William Butler Yeats and T. S. Eliot express alienation in their writings, though for different purposes. In “The Second Coming,” Yeats’s narrator is alienated by religious persecution and in some ways by his own attitudes, and is able to see the approaching disintegration of civilization. T. S. Eliot expresses alienation in a much more direct manner in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Delivering a message of existential angst, Eliot’s narrator is cruelly alienated from society and exposes the frivolity of life as it is lived in civilized society. Though their messages are very different, both artists deliver their musings through the eyes of the modern alienated individual.
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