"Sweeney among the Nightingales" is a poem by T.S. Eliot about a lonely man who is having diner. He is enjoying his diner when a drunken woman comes in and attempts to sit on his lap. In this process she spills a cup of coffee and falls to the floor. The lonely man watches this woman as the waiter delivers her Oranges, bananas, figs, and hothouse grapes. He watches silently as she devours the grapes with "murderous paws". He feels that he has been noticed watching them and decides to leave. However, he does not completely leave. He watches them from outside the window. He refers to these women as nightingales. These women were most likely reputable women during daytime and it was peculiar to witness them drunken and about at night. In this poem, T.S. Eliot presents the idea that modern man or woman is a crude version of Agamemnon just as corrupt and unjust. He conveys that everyday life is not as the romantic poetry from latter periods try to make it seem. He basically cuts all the fluff of life and tries to break it down to the cruel unjust reality that it really is.
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