Morning at the Window
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January 09, 2021
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T. S. Eliot, 1888 – 1965
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.
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Poet
Thomas Stearns Eliot, an American-born scholar, sophisticated eclectic, and poetic genius claimed by both
the United States and England, is the twentieth century's touchstone author and criticwas born in St. Louis,
Missouri, in 1888.His style transcended previous literary movements with a surprising sense of humor. Both
frustratingly obtuse and dazzlingly memorable, his masterworks redirect attention from the collapse of
Edwardian respectability to the birth of modernism.In 1921, he wrote the poem "The Waste Land" while
recovering from exhaustion. The dense, allusion-heavy poem went on to redefine the genre and become one of
the most talked about poems in literary history. For his lifetime of poetic innovation, Eliot won the Order of
Merit and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Part of the ex-pat community of the 1920s, he spent most of
his life in Europe, dying in London, England, in 1965.
Eliot's relation to romanticism, his significance in the development of modernism, his role as an expatriate
effecting a "reconciliation with America" in "The Dry Salvages" are all important considerations. His
techniques of juxtaposition, aggregation of images, symbolism, the use of multiple literary allusions, the
influence of Dante are all worth attention, as is his use of "free verse" and many various poetic forms. Note
also the musicality of his verse, his use of verbal repetition as well as clusters of images and symbols.
Poem
Morning at the Window is an imagist poem that presents an image of poverty. The picture is that of a slum
where people lead miserable lives. The speaker is at the window. He may be a visitor of a certain house in the
area where poor people live. The images that come to his eyes are 'object correlatives' or objects corresponding
certain ideas and emotions in the poet's and the reader's mind.
The images in the poem correlate with the idea of poverty and feelings of sympathy. But the poem only
presents them just the objective image, rather than romantically expressing his feelings and emotions. There is
also a balance between feelings and ideas in the sense that the image arouses not only feelings in the reader but
also provokes thoughts and idea
Background
Like many modernist writers, Eliot wanted his poetry to express the fragile psychological state of humanity in
the twentieth century. The passing of Victorian ideals and the trauma of World War I challenged cultural
notions of masculine identity, causing artists to question the romantic literary ideal of a visionary-poet capable
of changing the world through verse. Modernist writers wanted to capture their transformed world, which they
perceived as fractured, alienated, and denigrated. Europe lost an entire generation of young men to the horrors
of the so-called Great War, causing a general crisis of masculinity as survivors struggled to find their place in a
radically altered society. Humanity‘s collectively damaged psyche prevented people from communicating with
one another, an idea that Eliot explored in many works, including ―A Game of Chess‖ (the second part of The
Waste Land) and ―The Hollow Men.‖
Speaker
The person, who is speaking in the poem to be Eliot, However, it could be a character Eliot has created, a
person of higher social status; because the person has a window and therefore does not live in a basement . The
first time this person has looked out the window and is clearly observing society because of the deep sorrow
and pity he is expressing towards the "housemaids" with "damp souls". The poem is empirical. Immediately,
we know that the speaker has excluded himself from the first line saying "They", meaning the majority
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Summary
The poor people are rattling (making sound) breakfast plates early in the morning. It is an obligation for poor
people to go to work early and work till late. Sun or shower, frost or fog, they have to set out early. The image
brings to mind similar images of poverty. The speaker says that he is aware of the condition of the households'
minds and souls, or their psychology. He doesn't describe that. Such housemaids are appearing one after
another at the city gate. Maybe they come from villages. They have no identity, dignity and meaningful life.
They are 'despondent', or extremely sad.
The speaker seems to go along, or else look further away waves of "brown" fog which come up to him. This is
perhaps because the city air is so polluted. Twisted faces of depressed people pass by.A passerby has tears in
the eyes. The speaker takes another glance and sees her dirty skirt. Another person comes up and tries to smile,
but fails. The smile vanishes among the city roofs.
Interpretation
All these disjointed images can be put together to build up a general picture of the poor people's plight. The
focus is on poor servant girls whose souls themselves are "damp" (moist and dirt). The poet evokes our
emotion without telling his emotions. He arouses pity without telling his pity for the people.
Eliot asserted that poetry must present 'objective correlatives' or objects and events that will correspond to
certain emotions in the reader's experience. The poet need not express his personal emotion. This idea of poetry
is anti-romantic. For instance, when we encounter objective images of poverty, we understand it. The image of
a child on top of a burning house would need no explanation!
Eliot also strongly suggested that poetry must balance intellect, (thought) and emotion (feeling). The feelings
of the individual poet must become a matter of thought for everyone in the poem. This balance is called 'unified
sensibility'. The present poem presents only objective correlatives of poverty; the poet doesn't describe his
feelings put presents objects that correlate or correspond to sympathy towards the poor. He balances the
underlying feelings of pathos (pity) with a thoughtful mind and serous art. Eliot shows how personal emotion
can be transformed into a universal thought-provoking image. Eliot also presents things as his impressions
recorded them. The twisted face, the aimless smile, the eyes with tears, the muddy skirts are fragments of his
impressions. The poet presents in the same way that these things made the impression on him. In this sense, the
poem is impressionistic.
The imagery is familiar and vivid. It can be said to symbolize poverty. The objective presentation of images
makes the poem an imagist poem. It's symbolic meaning and impressionistic viewpoint are also other important
features of the poem. In short, such a presentation is unique, that makes the poem memorable and unique
though the subject matter of poverty is very common.
Theme
The theme of the poem "Morning at the Window" is poverty. The poem presents a very human picture of poor
people in the city slum. The poem presents a set of typical images that suggest poverty, depression, misery and
squalor in the slums (poor and dirty areas of the cities) where the poor live. The poet also mentions the state of
the souls of the housemaids. So the poem thematically includes the issues of poverty, depression and squalor in
the lives of poor people in the city.
Perhaps more terrible than poverty is the problem of depression and distress with which the poor people in the
pace live their lives. The damp souls of housemaids, the twisted face of a passerby, the tears in the eyes of a
girl who is also wearing a muddy skirt, and the aimless smile of a person who tries and fails to smile are all
indicators of sadness and frustration as well as poverty. Poor people can sometimes be happy, as in tribal
villages. But here the problem of unhappiness seems to be even more terrible.
The people rattling breakfast plates early in the morning suggest the poverty of the people who have to go to
work early. They are also living in the basements of houses for they cannot afford to live in better apartments.
The very roads in those streets are trampled or torn. The speaker feels that the housemaids are down hearted
and miserable. But for the city dwellers, the poor girls sprout out of nowhere at the gates of the city. The
speaker then notices a set of several other images of poverty and dejection. He sees twisted faces of people who
certainly have pain and distress. He sees a girl with tears in her eyes and a muddy skirt on her. Then someone
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passes by with an aimless smile. All these images are objective correlatives of poverty, which is the main
theme of the poem.
Techniques or literary devices.
Paradox:
Analysis of the poem "Morning at the Window" The title "Morning at the Window" may be viewed as paradoxical because the title evokes a joyful awakening, although the poem is not joyful as closer analysis reveals. Sensory Imagery Eliot opens ―Morning at the Window‖ with a lot of sensory detail reflecting the hustle and loudness of urban life. The noise of breakfast plates rattle in basement kitchens, before shifting a few lines later to the image of housemaids ―sprouting despondently at area gates.‖ Eliot gives an image per line, before moving to the next one. Each image reflects the speaker‘s discomfort and troubling experience. Visual imagery In the poem, ―Morning at the Window,‖ Eliot again uses image after image to reflect the experience of the modern world and urban life. The images in the poem correlate with the idea of poverty and feelings of sympathy. But the poem only presents them just the objective image, rather than romantically expressing his feelings and emotions. There is also a balance between feelings and ideas in the sense that the image arouses not only feelings in the reader but also provokes thoughts and ideas. "Damp souls" is an extremely negative phrase, clearly saying that these people are deeply unhappy. An example of the working class, is used, "housemaids". The person whom is looking out of the window is expressing deep sorrow and pity for these "housemaids" with "damp souls" In line four, the poet uses a verb, "sprouting", the word sprouting gives me the an image of housemaids appearing out of nowhere . The word "despondently" clearly evokes to the reader that these people are immensely depressed with their life and the feeling of being trapped in their situations, seeing no escape from their repetitive andunfulfilling lifestyles. This stanza has dramatic powerful imagery of melancholic people appearing on thestreet preparing for another miserable and lifeless day. Personification Eliot has personified the "fog" by using the verb "toss", therefore giving it human-like qualities and action.The second stanza draws some resemblance to the personified fog found in In ―Morning at the Window,‖ the fog is also a fog of movement, which tosses up to the unnamed speaker ―twisted faces from the bottom of the street‖ and also an ―aimless smile‖ that hovers in the air, torn from a passer-by with muddy skirts. Symbols The basement in the first stanza visualize the symbol of poverty. At the start of the second stanza, Eliot says, "brown waves", giving a sense of unhygienic and polluted air, because we associate the colour "brown" as a dirty, dull colour. "Fog" is symbolic of confusion; and the twisted faces and the aimless smile symbolizes the frustration and the emptiness in city life. There is alliteration in the poem, "breakfast" and "basements", "am" and "aware", "souls" and "sprouting". Eliot uses many poetic devices in this poem, the connotations of the morning and the basement, onomatopoeia is used when referring to the "rattling", Eliot has also used a metaphor of the working classes, the "housemaids". Also using symbolic words, such as "fog" and the "window". The alliteration isused to help the rhythm flow when real aloud. Eliot employs no fixed rhyme schemes that he then breaks to show the fractured world. For the most part, the poem is written without any true rhymes
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