FREE ESSAY ON T.S. ELIOT'S POEM, CHORUSES FROM "THE ROCK"

T.S. ELIOT'S POEM, CHORUSES FROM "THE ROCK"

In order to understand T.S. Eliot's poem, Choruses from "The Rock," one must first
understand Eliot's views on contemporary theology and spirituality. He felt as if people
were moving away from the Church and were losing their religion in favor of more secular
worship. The following passage from Eliot's poem can summarize his entire argument that
he makes in Choruses from "The Rock". 
But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before: though we know
not just when, or why, or how, or where. Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say,
but for no God; and this has never happened before that men both deny gods and worship
gods, professing first Reason, And then Money, and Power, and what they call 
Life, or Race, or Dialectic. 
The Church disowned, the tower overthrown, the bells upturned, and what have we to do but
stand with empty hands and palms turned upwards in an age which advances progressively
backwards? 
T.S. Eliot - Choruses from 'The Rock'
Eliot complains that something has happened that has never happened before: for the first
time, man stands alienated from God. He believes that man stands lonely, in great
darkness, with no light to guide him; and Eliot is right. Something has happened that has
never happened before. One might ask why or how it has happened. These things do not
happen in a certain moment. They happen so gradually that one never becomes really aware
of when, where, or how. 
The civilized man has lost something because now we live in the man-made world where it
is almost impossible to find any sign of God. God is hard to find in the asphalt roads or
in cement structures. These things are not alive. How can one find God in machines or in
technology? Even facing the greatest machine you cannot feel awe, you cannot feel
reverence, you cannot feel like falling on your knees and praying. If you cannot feel
like falling on your knees and praying once in a while, how can God remain a part of your
being? 
Eliot claims that man is facing a tremendous flood of meaninglessness for the first time.
Everything seems to be utterly insignificant, and the reason is simple: without God there
can be no significance, no splendor. Life can have meaning only in the context of
something that surpasses life. The meaning always comes from the context; now man stands
without a context. The meaning comes only when you can look upwards to something bigger
than you, something greater than you. When you feel related with something greater,
holier, your life has meaning. 
Man has left nature and has created an artificial world of his own. This fact has been
the most shattering phenomenon which has disrupted man from God and all that is implied
in God: meaning, significance, majesty, love, prayer, meditation, and all that is
valuable. The irony is, man has never been so rich as he is today. Both things have
happened together: the inner, spiritual being has become poorer while the outer being has
become richer. We have more money than any other society before, we have in every way
more power than any other society ever had before, and still no society has ever felt
such meaninglessness. 
Eliot thinks that we have cultivated reason too much and we have become lopsided. Science
functions from the head while religion functions from the heart. Because we have become
too obsessed with the head we think that is all there is. As we become more and more hung
up in the head, we become more and more oblivious to the existence of the heart, and
Eliot thinks that we will become more and more miserable. 
T. S. Eliot is right: ... something has happened that has never happened before: though
we know not just when, or why, or how, or where. Men have left God not for other gods...
That was very usual in the past; people used to move from one god to another. That was an
evolution. The God of Moses is less sophisticated than the God of Jesus, since there are
thousands of years between these two enlightened persons. Moses had to talk the language
that could be understood by his people, and those people were very primitive. Therefore,
Moses spoke in the language of law, commandments. 
By the time Jesus arrived man had evolved. Jesus talked about love, not about law. Love
is a higher value than law. The God of the Jews was a jealous god and a very angry god;
for small reasons he would destroy cities. It was not really the god that was violent and
angry, it was the people. Their eyes were full of violence and anger, they could not see
the real God. God is always the same, but our eyes change. Jesus could see God as love
and compassion. Man was changing one god for another, for a higher conception of god. 
In the past people had been changing gods: Men have left God not for other gods... But in
the present day something else has happened: Man has not left God for other god. Man has
dropped the whole idea of God, the whole idea of a divine presence in existence. Now man
is standing alone and is feeling empty. 
Man cannot remain empty; it is difficult to remain empty. So a new phenomenon is
happening. According to Eliot, man has created his own gods. Professing first Reason...
-- and because man cannot remain empty for long, he replaced it first with reason; reason
became god. However, reason is limited, it cannot prove many things. For example, it
cannot prove the beauty of a rose, but the beauty exists. Reason cannot prove the
existence of love, but love exists; reason is inadequate to prove it. 
Money also became god; millions of people worship money as god. Power has become a god.
The politician has become the most important person in the world. We have denied God, but
how can we deny our emptiness? We have rejected God, and we had to stuff something in the
empty space, so we stuff it with political power, with money, with reason, with race,
with dialectics. 
Man cannot live without religion. Man cannot live without God. If the true God is not
available, then man is bound to create home-made gods. The Church disowned, the tower
overthrown, the bells upturned, and what have we to do but stand with empty hands and
palms turned upwards in an age which advances progressively backwards? Yes, T.S. Eliot is
right. In his poem, Choruses from "The Rock," Eliot berates society for losing their
faith in God and placing it in non-Christian symbols. This is exactly the movement that
will harm us all in the long run.