Topic > Analysis of William Wordsworth's poem, "The World Is Too Much With Us"

William Wordsworth's poem, The World Is Too Much With Us, explores the results of man's estrangement from the natural world due to social obsession with materialism. My media product, The People are Too Much Without Themselves, is a creative interpretation of this theme and talks about how humans' obsession with technology is driving them away from each other. My multimedia product uses aspects of the poem's content, style, and structure to help accurately represent it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original EssayWilliam Wordsworth lived during the Romantic period which heavily influenced this poem. Romanticism was a time of great change and revolution from a more scientific view of the world to a natural world. This was “an age that felt a new appreciation for the sublime in the natural world.” (Victorian Web 1) However, this was also the period of the Industrial Revolution which gave power and wealth to the individuals who possessed the greatest material wealth. Wordsworth shows the clashes between these two ideologies very clearly. In the eyes of the speakers the world is simply “taking and spending” and devastating its “powers” ​​(Wordsworth 2). This represents the idea of ​​commodification and how humans are so focused on achieving power through material wealth that they waste their true talents and usefulness to do so. It is also believed that society sees “little in Nature” and this shows how society does not appreciate and distance itself from nature (Wordsworth 3). I represent this idea in my media product by having a game character give up his heart to get a coin. In a game coins are not as rare as hearts and hearts are much more useful as they can provide healing, but the character still chooses to accept this exchange. The entire scene is displayed on a Gameboy that can only be used by someone. This symbolizes how we as humans are doing this to ourselves and in doing so we are distancing ourselves from each other, much like how the speaker feels society is distancing itself from nature. The structure of this poem is also carefully chosen by Wordsworth to further emphasize the theme. Use rhyme to emphasize and add meaning to nature. He rhymes “boon” with “moon” and “ore” with “flowers,” and in this way rhyming words about nature creates emphasis on them (Wordsworth 2-4). In my multimedia product I represent nature through people and I showed this kind of emphasis by having everything in dark, dull colors except the people, which are in bright, vibrant colors, to emphasize their importance. This rhyme scheme is created through the sonnet structure used by Wordsworth and this is another very important choice he makes. The structure of the sonnet is very rigid and has many fixed rules. This clashes not only with Wordsworth's “simpler, more conversational” style, but also with the poem's theme of being free and natural (Robinson 20). By doing this so subtly Wordsworth attempts to show how we are in a false consciousness. We are willing to accept this consumerist vision of the world without knowing the limits and barriers it imposes on us and on nature. In my media product I have large black bars covering the video. Even though most don't notice them, they actually take away from the viewing pleasure and cover a considerable portion of the video. Both the sonnet form and the black bars in my video are subtle structural changes that take away.