I am aware of just how much human life on
our planet is being disrupted in these times, and literary tropes come to mind,
unbidden. Some more hopeful and helpful, some less so.
T.S. Eliot ended his 1925 poem, The Hollow Men, with these
words, “This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This
is the way the world ends / Not with a bang, but a whimper.” Apparently, Eliot
was upset with the demand for German reparations in the Treaty of Versailles,
and what these could lead to in Europe. Eliot’s concerns were firsthand in the
sense that he worked directly with German debts and reparations as a clerk in
Lloyds Bank in London. Perhaps more to the point, Eliot was one of the artists
known as the “Lost Generation,” those who were in their 20s and 30s as World
War I unfolded. Their sense of horrific disillusionment was overwhelming. Some
lost courage and hope, others lost a sense of purpose, becoming aimless or
reckless, unable to believe in ideals.