Analysis Assignment of E.J. Pratts From Stone to Steel (Essay Sample)

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Analysis of E.J. Pratt’s “From Stone to Steel”
The poem "From Stone to Steel" by E.J Pratt consists of five four-line stanzas written in iambic tetrameter rhymed ABAB. The poem has a regular rhyme scheme and meter. The poem explores the theme of human evolution based on the apparent distance involving the Java man ("homo erectus") and contemporary man, or "Geneva man" (referring to the cosmopolitan and urbane city of Geneva in Switzerland). The poem suggests that the one million-year old fossil for Java man had similar emotions as well as interior life as that for contemporary man, and that contemporary and ancient man take part in sin (raw emotional life) and also spiritual redemption moments as denoted by Gethsemane where Jesus and the disciples prayed before crucifixion.
From “Stone to Steel” traces humanity evolution, citing the material progression used for making tools: “From stone to bronze, from bronze to steel” (1.1). While anthropoid emerges before homo erectus (for instance Australopithecus afarensis) are regarded as non-human, homo erectus presents strong evidence of using tool technology and fire, and this aspect gives the creature the human face. According to Beckman (n.d), the expression evolution constitutes just one meaning that underlie the suggestive phrase “from Java to Geneva” (6). Notably, the term “Java” in the fourth line implies the region where Eugine Dubois excavated the femur and skull of a homo erectus on the banks of river Solo on Java Island in 1891.
The inferred links involving primitive humans and contemporary humans appear in all stanzas of the poem. The Neanderthal cited in the second stanza is the later form compared to Homo erectus, considered to have lived between 30,000 and 75,000 years ago. It might have evolved from Homo erectus, thus forming the connection between the primitive and contemporary humans because Neanderthal is regarded as Homo sapiens sapiens whereas Homo erectus is not.
The term “evolution” emerges in stanza three and outlines the thematic concern within the poem. In that stanza, an inference is made about River Euphrates, which alongside River Tigris, forms Mesopotamia, regarded as the cradle agrarian revolution. The shift from hunter-gatherer entities to settlements that depend on food production occurred about 11,000 years ago. From the Neanderthal human era, the poem has shifted forward many years.
“From Stone to Steel” takes the reader on a journey of evolution, every stanza denoting a different phase within the human development. In the following stanza, animal sacrifice practices and temples indicate a New World civilization, for instance, that of the Maya Empire in South America. Excavation of Tikal, an old city in Mexico reveals religious evidence and temples regarding a religion that the inhabitants subscribed to while seeking guidance on agricultural matters.
From Solo humans, 300,000 years ago, to Neanderthal humans, 75,000 years ago, early production of food 11,000 years ago, towards the New World 3,000 years ago, the poem moves readers forward to modernity. However, in the last stanza, the poem asks whether evolution has propelled humankind forward or backward: “The road goes up, the road goes down” (l.17); whether there has been evolution of man between fire discovery and tool making (homo erectus) and the conference that was held in Geneva in 1864, where a treaty was signed stipulating the wartime rules for treatment of the wounded, the sick, and prisoners. The poem’s last line is ambivalent. It tends to suggest that human sacrifices delineate human beings from lower forms of life, both in the demonstration for humanity’s free will as well as in the barbarism and brutality. The allusion to the Biblical story of Jesus’ crucifixion in the term “Gethsemane” reflects the ability of humans to practice free will and decide to die for their beliefs, but it reflects the unlimited ability of humans to visit atrocities upon themselves.
The use of jargon within Pratt’s poetry helps in drawing the readers in, instilling confidence in data reliability, and simultaneously, the exclusionary manner of scientific vocabulary pushes readers away by sensitizing them about living outside the world where such jargon is the norm. Each stanza of “From Stone to Steel” deals with contemporary and primitive humans, paying attention to their capacity and desire of studying themselves, and portrays humans as self-conscious and self-aware beings. As humanity gathers empirical data regarding its origins, it is repeatedly confronted with the inescapable fact that it solely comprises a tiny piece within the human evolution puzzle. By moving backward and forward between human origin and their current status within every stanza, through the flashback method that Djwa (1974) recognizes coupled with repetition of words “Java” and “Geneva” within the first and last stanzas, Pratt’s poem shows structurally that in going back to examine human origin humans affirm that they form part of a bigger process, which they have no control over.
Allusion is utilized in this poem. In "From Stone to Steel" allusion is utilized for making a link from ancient to the current in certain occasions. For instance, when the poet cites the Rhine or Euphrates, or how steel and stone alludes to power and technology contrasted to primary resources and rocks. Through allusion to anthropological facts, Pratt gives the poem an objectively clinical tone, and gives the speaker’s voice the sound of detached observer. However, in questioning human morality within the last line, the poet compels scientific inquiry assumptions to be confronted by the faith-driven, problematic sentiments of religious doctrine. The evocation of evolutionary theory strives to challenge religious’ creation theory and replaces the Christian underpinning of human superiority. Additionally, in the poem, the focus of imagery is on the image that readers get regarding the suffering they have to endure while advancing in life. Additionally, Pratt uses connotation when he states that "Between the temple and the cave / the boundary lies tissue-thin"(ll.11).
From Stone to Steel illustrates another strategic reversal, this time from a cynical ironic stance throughout towards an anticipated note of hope and compassion in the end. The usual debunking function of irony is the norm of the poem, conflating all human history into two positions namely atavistic brutality (“snarl Neanderthal”, “cave”, “desire”, “maturing a toxic wine”). The vanity (hopelessness) of creating any distance between temple and cave is underlined by the preposterous image, “The yearlings still the altars crave/As satisfaction for a sin;”even the victims are complicit in this travesty of religion. And the relentlessly cheerful iambic rhythm seems to trivialize the cynicism, setting at a distance what narrative presence is there, until the last two lines simultaneously slow the rhythm and introduce an alternative not even hinted at elsewhere within the poem.
Gethsemane, that moment of deliberate decision to sacrifice oneself in order to put an end to both temple and sacrifice of victims, that moment in which the broad “road” is forsaken in favour of the narrow “path” (10) is the only possible alternative to the mindless roll of the wheel from one type of brutality to another. Though Pratt has maintained the detached pose of a viewer he has nevertheless affirmed individual choice, one that requires deep engagement with the woes of others, as an antidote to collective desire and guilt (11).
That the poet considers the mental processes the key differentiation involving contemporary humans and their forebears is illustrating by Pratt’s comparison of contemporary civilization to “Java” in from Stone to Steel. The Java man, whose fossils were located within the Pleistocene strata in Java Island between 1892 and 1894, is regarded as the missing connection between man and another type of being having anthropoidal features and human development potential. That potential implies the brain, because the Java man had all human attributes except the brain. Brain development occurred fully in the last stages.
Java man, then, had features that resembled those of a contemporary man and, with respect to the evolutionary time, not far detached from him, yet the brain was smaller compared to that of man. The considerable deduction revolves around the fact that within human growth an unprecedented incredible jump in brain development must have existed. Pratt' s 'symbol for Java man is therefore ideal for the notion of mental powers so lately obtained that the border separating barbarism and civilization is thin like a tissue.
The full growth of human development not only emanated from his autonomy but from the forebears after spending a prolonged period within arboreal conditions. Due to this, their fore limbs developed into hands by balancing, holding, grasping, and pulling, activities that stimulated brain development through judgment and estimation of branches’ strength. Additionally, by providing a defined tactile trend to objects, the hands offered...