A Rhetorical Analysis Of Prufrock By Ezra Pound

1. The author of this passage, Ezra Pound, is well-known as the founder of imagism. The movement came about in the early 20th century and was a reaction to Romanticism. Imagism favored simplicity, clear and precise expression, and to avoid abstraction through detailed visual images. Imagism writing rejected metered form and was usually short, free-verse. In this passage, Ezra Pound is emphasizing all of these ideals. Imagism writes almost in “instant” snapshots, and carries both emotional and intellectual force. Pound, by using the word ‘complex’, intends for the reader to understand that their Imagist writing should be a complex snapshot – one that has deeper meaning than what is on the surface.

He also encourages the image to take the

He describes how “the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” (35-36), which brings the image of Michelangelo’s own strength and manliness. This contrasts with Prufrock’s timid and shy nature who can’t work up the nerve to ask a serious question; this evokes pity and sympathy in me and makes me feel bad for Prufrock. The lines “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons... To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways” describes how he sees his life flit by, tedious and boring, having always evaded serious decisions. This further emphasizes the sympathy I feel for Prufrock’s plight and the theme of passivity, seeing as how he regrets most of his life. Furthermore, he remembers the sharp, heartless gaze of the eyes that look at him as if they have already measured his worth. His sad circumstance is brought out by the image of a poor worm stuck to the wall by a sharp pin-point and wriggling there helplessly: “The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin” (55-59). In “The Waste Land”, the different poems that make up the greater work, although disjointed, create a sense of unity. I feel that the poems as a whole show the path that one person is going on that result in a kind of inner peace after they go through a moral

Gertrude Stein, one of the United States’ most famous writers of the twentieth century, has contributed much towards American literature. Her writing from books like The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and The Making of Americans discuss topics such as what is to be American, what it means to be a woman, and how people see and tell stories. She describes her own ordinary experiences but manages to draw out the uniqueness of her subjects. In addition, she would also experiment with writing through a “stream of consciousness”. This style of writing is typical of Modernists, and Stein’s writing help solidify Modernism as the new literary movement during the 1920s. In Tender Buttons, she also addresses lesbian sexuality and her own experiences with them, creating an opportunity to destigmatize non-heterosexual relationships. Stein also opened up her Paris home (known as the Stein Salon) to members of the “Lost Generation”, inviting them to have their writing reviewed and critiqued. In regards to one of Ernest Hemmingway’s manuscripts, Stein replied: “There is a good deal of description in this, and not particularly good description. Begin over again and concentrate”. These helpful criticisms surely aided and encouraged the writing of notorious authors like Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who produced some of the greatest novels of the