Student Question
Why does Eliot likely include an image of feet in every section of “Preludes”?
Quick answer:
T. S. Eliot likely includes images of feet in each section of "Preludes" to symbolize people's personalities and their experiences in the city without needing extensive description. The recurring imagery of feet highlights the monotony, despair, and degradation of urban life. Through references to feet wrapped in newspapers, muddy feet trudging to work, and yellow soles, Eliot conveys the characters' struggles and the grim reality of their environment.
To answer this question, carefully read through the entire poem "Preludes" by T. S. Eliot, and then reread the descriptions of feet in each stanza and try to put those descriptions in context with the rest of the stanza and the poem as a whole. Once we have done this, we can consider the options of answers one by one.
Answer A says: "Every section is about people moving around the city." We can dismiss this answer by looking at the third stanza. In this section, a woman is awakening in bed, tossing a blanket aside, considering visions she has seen in the night, and contemplating the appearance of her feet and hands. She is not moving around the city.
Answer B says: "Feet are the most important subject of each part of the poem." This is not true, either. The poem is not about feet. It...
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is about the lives and souls of people living in a dirty, sordid city. The feet in each section are used symbolically.
Answer C says: "The whole poem is about hope and progress in cities." This is also not true. The poem deals much more with helplessness and despair than with hope. The only glimmer of hope is near the end when the second-person protagonist is encouraged to "wipe your hands across your mouth and laugh." The implication is to smile through the tears and hope for better things to come, even if there is no apparent indication of it.
Answer D says: "Feet can represent people's personalities without much description." This is the correct answer, and we can see this if we analyze the appearance of feet in each of the stanzas. In the first stanza, withered leaves and newspapers wrap around "your feet," that is, the feet of the second person protagonist. This suggests the filth and degradation of the streets, but also the protagonist looking downward towards her feet in despondency. In the second stanza, with "stale smells of beer" lingering from the night, "muddy feet" press towards "early coffee-stands." This suggests the many laborers who try to forget their difficult toil by drinking at night, but then have to drag themselves to work the next morning. In the third stanza, the protagonist wakens from troubling visions and contemplates her "yellow soles of feet." She must be discouraged that they never get completely clean from the grime of the city. In the fourth stanza, the "blackened street" is "tramped by insistent feet" at certain times, suggesting the monotony and despair of lives locked into degrading scheduled toil.