Eliot’s poetry consists of many poems in which the meaning is reflected in the stream of consciousness, often with no direct judgement but subtle satire, irony and the cynical tone of the speaker.
One main theme of Eliot’s poetry is criticism of modernization and its implication on social behaviours and moral, The stream of consciousness in “Preludes” takes readers to scenes of the street in the urban working class residential areas which is a product of modernization. “The grimy scraps/ Of withered leaves about your feet/ And newspaper from vacant lots”, “the sawdust-trampled street”. Then, in “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”, the stream of consciousness also shows us scene of old factory. “A broken spring in a factory yard,/ Rust that clings to the form the strength has left/ Hard and curled and ready to snap.” These visual image choices help to show the speaker’s dislike of the outlook of modernization. In “Preludes” and “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”, the speakers show images of other forms of decay as well, “yellow soles of feet… both soiled hands” and “washed-out smallpox cracks her face” of the personified moon. These images show the speaker’s gloomy attitude towards human ageing.
The two poems use visual imagery to show automatic activities too. Such activities include the things people do to endure life and work, “sleep, prepare for life”, “With all its muddy feet that press/ To early coffee-stands”, the things people do to alleviate the pain of living, “fingers stuffing pipes” which has reference to smoking and some may even interpret the speaker of “Rhapsody of a Windy Night” as drunk as he sees all the twisted images which are not real. such as the moon personified as a woman. Furthermore, in “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”, there is image after image which shows people or object acting automatically, such as the cat which licks the bad butter, “the cat… slips out its tongue and devours a morsel of rancid butter”, the street child who picks up a toy, “the child. These images all substantiate the meaning of the poems: modernization has made life very unbearable and turned everything from human to nature into automatic soulless “machines”. Visual imagery is to show specific connotation, hence contribute to the meaning of the poems.
Stream of consciousness is different from a mere narrative by an omniscient view as it gives visual imagery seen by the speaker. The point of view of the speaker may affect the interpretation or the description of specific details of the scenes. These interpretations and description may reflect the emotion or thinking of the speaker. Firstly, those effects can be shown through the diction. For example, in “Preludes”, the emptiness feeling of the speaker is reflected through the use of “broken” and further emphasized by the alliteration of “b” in the “broken blinds and chimney pots”. The loneliness feeling is reflected through his interpretation in the “cab-horse” image by adding that it’s a “lonely cab-horse”. The speaker’s dislike of prostitutes is reflected through the simile of “like a crooked pin” in “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” when the speaker sees a prostitute winking. As these interpretation and descriptions are not objective but subjective, they reflect the attitude or emotion of the poet or the speaker. These qualities are essential to the meaning of the poems.