Essay --

In "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats, Yeats uses allusions, symbols, and vivid imagery to convey his cynical and despondent tone about the new evil, corrupt, and immoral era following World War I. Yeats begins the poem with an image of a "widening gyre" or a vortex of spiraling motion. This image immediately implies the chaos and disorder in a society that is spiraling wider and wider out of control and becoming more corrupt. Yeats elaborates on and supports this idea with "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold" and "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world" to further symbolize how the universe is collapsing with confusion and the absence of principles. Yeats also implies the danger and disaster to come with an image of a falcon who "cannot hear the falconer" to further illustrate suspense and danger that humanity is facing. This image also suggests that similar to the falcon that is flying around in a "widening gyre, society has wandered too far away from its morals and is doomed with curruption. Yeats continues his cynical tone with "everywhere the ceremony of innocenc...