Both 'the Preludes' and 'the Pedestrian' Represent the Urban Metropolis as an Alienating Environment. Discus How the Texts Convey This.

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Both Bradbury’s The Pedestrian and Eliot’s ‘The Preludes’ represent the city as a negative, alienating environment which promotes isolation and lack of connection, however, the cause of this explored differently. Bradbury attempts through The Pedestrian to position the reader to perceive the dangers of dependence and overuse of technology, whilst Eliot attributes the isolation occurring in cities to the monotony and cyclical nature of them. In both texts, the composers attempt to position the reader to realise the alienating properties of the urban environment. In stanza one, Eliot infers the fragmented and fatally detrimental aspect of urban environments, writing “Of withered leaves about your feet”. His use of ‘withered’, heavy with negative connotations, implies the harmful potential of urban environments. Furthermore, Eliot’s structuring of the poem - which refers to a diverse range of people and experiences throughout its four stanzas - conveys the fragmented nature of the urban landscape on the people immersed in them. Eliot also conveys this fractured society through a use of disconnected limbs, such as “feet” and “hands”, the fragmented body parts a metaphor for urban civilization – never to be whole. Similarly, Bradbury positions the reader to view the city in a negative light, through his language used to depict and describe the city. He writes, “The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in midcountry”, utilised list of words such as ‘silent and long and empty’ to illustrate through implication his interpretation of the city. Bradbury complements this isolated view of city life with the metaphor of a giant insect, “a great insect rustling and a ceaseless jockeying for position as the scarab-beetles” the use of words such as ‘rustling’, laden with negative, fearful connotations to emphasise his view.

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