The Social Order
The Social Order - meaning Summary
Power, Hypocrisy, Domestic Decay
Pound presents two brief, satirical vignettes about social hypocrisy and the small moral economy of respectability. The first scene sketches a government official whose affectations reveal social artifice. The second describes an old, formerly atheist woman given elaborate rites while relatives scramble for her belongings; even her cats are drawn into a mock-religious procession. Both parts underline ritual, opportunism, and the hollowness left behind by social performance.
Read Complete AnalysesI This government official Whose wife is several years his senior, Has such a caressing air When he shakes hands with young ladies. II (Pompes Funèbres) This old lady, Who was fcso old that she was an atheist', Is now surrounded By six candles and a crucifix, While the second wife of a nephew Makes hay with the things in her house. Her two cats Go before her into Avernus; A sort of chloroformed suttee, And it is to be hoped that their spirits will walk With their tails up, And with a plaintive, gentle mewing, For it is certain that she has left on this earth No sound Save a squabble of female connections,
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