Reading Responses to a Poem - Essay Example

Anarchy in William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” Teacher               Anarchy in Yeats’ “The Second Coming” William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” was written after the First World War, where the world wallowed in pessimism and suffering. However, what is the root of all this chaos? Yeats’ poem, through its theme, form and language reveals that it is disobedience that brings about destruction and evil in the world.Yeats’ “The Second Coming” somehow foretells the anarchy that is to transpire and that is to destroy society and its established rules.

The theme of doom shows itself in the first line that reveal how the anarchy will slowly occur: “The falcon cannot hear the falconer” (Yeats, 2011, line 2). This means that no one will bow down to any master or any government anymore, and so the result is revealed by the next line: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold” (Yeats, 2011, 3). This is chaos and anarchy and this is the result of relinquishing one’s allegiance to the government. Everything that ensues is brutal such as the release of the “blood-dimmed tide” and worst of all, the birth of the “rough beast” that “slouches towards Bethlehem to be born” (Yeats, 2011, 5, 21-22).

Blood will therefore be shed as the world awaits the coming of the devil that will destroy everything else. The form of Yeats’ poem also reveals the chaotic confusion demonstrated by the theme. The form is a blank verse that has no uniform length for the lines. Moreover, the rhymes are also coincidental. The only parts of the poem that rhyme include lines 3 and 4 with the words “hold” and “world” (Yeats, 2011, 3-4). The rest are simply non-rhyming lines that imply a lack of order, which is similar to the world revealed by the theme and the content of the lines.

Aside from the theme and the form, the figurative language of Yeats’ “The Second Coming” also shows extreme confusion and chaos and most of all, a reversal of the roles of Christ and the devil. The allusion to Christ is found in the last part of the poem, where the “rough beast…slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” (Yeats, 2011, 21-22). Bethlehem is the biblical place where Christ the Savior of the Christians was born but Yeats replaces Christ with the devil in the form of the sphinx – “a shape with lion body and the head of a man” – thus, he metaphorically replaces the authority of Christ or the Good with that of the Devil or Evil (Yeats, 2011, 14).

Thus, in Yeats’ poem, the Good will disappear and Evil will reign. Whether Yeats was only pessimistic or he was simply making allegories to the chaos that World War I has brought the world during the time the poem was written, “The Second Coming” serves as a reminder to everyone that anarchy or disobedience to authority will bring about destruction, genocide, and the rise of Evil Perhaps, all forms of disobedience will most likely herald such chaos. The poem, therefore, may also be interpreted as a testament to the long term effects of disobedience.

ReferencesYeats, W. B. (2011). “The Second Coming.” Retrieved Sept. 8, 2012 from Generation Cobweb: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172062