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| Image courtesy of: Urban Gurl @ http://simongarfunkel.tumblr.com |
I was on the DART yesterday listening to Simon & Garkfunkel's 'America' when it struck me how similar this simple elegy is to Eliot's Prufrock with its cache of clothing references:
Unlike Eliot however whose loss is defined by an inability to permeate the hermetic seal of Edwardian society, Kathy and Simon share a more palpable loss. Despite being tethered together in their search for a better life:
"Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together.
I've got some real estate here in my bag."
I've got some real estate here in my bag."
And the sense of excitement which the beginning of a new adventure brings:
"Laughing on the bus
Playing games with the faces
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said "Be careful his bowtie is really a camera""
She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy
I said "Be careful his bowtie is really a camera""
The reality of hardship is a familiar stranger they will never escape.
"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"
"We smoked the last one an hour ago"
The sense of loneliness and isolation is heightened by their togetherness:
"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why"
a foreboding seense of ennui punctuted by 'counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike '; much like that of Eliot's life 'measured out in coffee spoons':
"They've all gone to look for America"
Seems like everyone is still searching...
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