While the Romantics dwelt on the beauty of the natural world, Eliot adopted the French Symbolist style to highlight the unpleasant, but real, aspects of rapid industrialization. The zoomorphism of Eliot's yellow smog conflicts with the Romantics' focus on the natural world. Scholars suggest that, through this comparison, Eliot attributes a cat's stealth and prowess to city smog. Eliot evokes desperation through his way of “lingering” to describe the “yellow fog” while highlighting how the pollution created by industrialization is difficult to eliminate. He further dismantles optimistic views towards society by subverting traditional poetic styles to satirize the superficiality of Romanticism. Through the use of simile, Eliot distorts the positive image of an “evening stretched out against the sky” by comparing it to a “patient etherized on a table.” I believe that by showing industrialization in this light, Eliot refines the desolate atmosphere of urban life. Furthermore, his frequent use of repetition suggests his adherence to certain poetic norms. However, Eliot's deliberate alteration of the repeated phrase, for example to "that's not at all what I meant/that's not at all", shows his defiance of traditional styles. Personally, it is this subversion of the romantic style that allows him to challenge public perceptions