T S Eliot Poem - "Morning At the Window"
Eliot's Social Themes and Concerns in an Industrial Urban Landscape
Feb 17, 2009
“Morning at the Window” is so like “rhapsody on a Windy Night”, and so in keeping with its central themes, that it could be some extraneous verses of “Rhapsody” that T S Eliot chose to excise and publish separately. As morning poetry, there is no sense of the delight of a fresh new day dawning.
Setting for “Morning at the Window”
The persona in this poem, however, is not walking the streets in the dead of night as in Rhapsody on a Windy Night”, but instead is staring moodily out his (or her as there is nothing to define gender) window as the world comes to life. The first line is a homely, very evocative image of everyday life – the “rattling of breakfast plates in basement kitchens”.
Themes and Concerns in “Morning at the Window”
The two dominant themes in T S Eliot’s poems - the decay of society and the isolation of the individual – are present even in this short poem. That original ‘homely’ first line seems to change its value as other images accumulate – images that speak of deterioration and moroseness: “trampled edges” “damp souls” “sprouting despondently”, “twisted faces”, “muddy skirts” and “aimless smiles”. After this welter of gloom, the initial comforting “rattling of breakfast plates” sounds more like the macabre rattling of bones.
The Perception of the Persona in “Morning at the Window.”
The world someone sees is coloured by their mood and perception. The persona speaks in the first person “I am aware…”, so the description in the poem is very much the personal vision of that persona. It is tempting to say “T S Eliot’s personal vision”, but too often people confuse the poet with the persona he or she creates.
No one, it is to be presumed, confuses Stephen King's personal beliefs with the demented people who speak through his novels, yet so many presume it is the poet’s voice they hear when they read a poem.
How does this persona perceive the world? The images identified above would suggest that the persona finds this microcosm of the world a little tawdry and tattered, yet somehow there is an underlying sense of gentle love for it.
Isolation as a Theme in T S Eliot’s Poem
It is also clear that the persona is isolated, divorced from the action. There is no real communication. He (or she) is leaning out the upstairs window. “They” – people without names – are making breakfast. He is ‘aware’ of the housemaids but not in contact with them.
The passers-by are at a distance below in the street. He receives only glimpses of faces and an ‘aimless smile’ – that is, a smile that is certainly not directed at him in a cheerful form of human communication – tossed up to him by the fog, as if he were a dog being thrown a bone.
In this society, nothing is achieved, communication fizzles, nothing quite makes it to where it’s supposed to be going. The souls of housemaids sprout, which is a positive image of fresh growth, yet that sense of purposeful life is immediately stripped with the very next word “despondently”. Even though the “aimless smile” is heading his way, it never quite makes it. It “hovers in the air and vanishes along the level of the roofs.”
While it is not explicit in this poem, there is often a sense in Eliot’s work that modern society, immersed in toil and commerce, has forgotten God, that prayers no longer rise. This is often represented by smoke failing to rise and fog lingering, as here, and never getting above the rooftops.
In no sense does Eliot despise the world or chastise society. His poems are full of sadness for what society could be or once was and has lost.
