The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock Essay Example

dare? / ... Do I dare / Disturb the universe? " Prufrock has so little confidence in his words that he comforts himself with the thought that there is time "for a hundred visions and revisions" before he must give his line.

Up until the final moment before he would speak Prufrock's questions linger, asking in the last stanza of the first section, "And should I then presume? / And how should I begin? " Given Prufrock's apprehension, Dante's heroicism in descending to Hell represents the antithesis of Prufrock, as he says: "No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; / Am an attendant lord, one that will do / To swell a progress, start a scene or two, / Advise the Prince; no doubt, an easy tool... " Prufrock's attempt to ask the "overwhelming question," to become Dante or Hamlet, passes without event, and with a pathetic acceptance on the part of Prufrock. Prufrock, in seeking and failing to become a hero in his own life, therefore condemns himself to ultimate waste and isolation. The epigraph tells the reader about the kind of condemnation this entails in the personal condition of Guido himself.

Guido has been wrapped in a tall flame for his sins, and must speak through the tongue of that flame. Through Prufrock's inability to speak this "overwhelming question," he gives up his chance to live, love, and communicate with happiness. Prufrock says he has "heard the mermaids singing, each to each // I do not think that they will sing to me. " The latter sentence, separated out with a period punctuating its finality, represents a self-condemnation;

Prufrock separates himself from the mermaid's singing, as evidenced by the use of 'I' and 'me. Guido's tongue of flame becomes Prufrock's self-inflicted punishment, a lifetime without the ability to communicate true feelings, and a lonely death at the hands of the "eternal footman" who "snickers" at his cowardice.

Finally, Guido's words, which appear in the epigraph, complete the reader's picture of Prufrock and his fate. When Dante asks Guido to identify himself, he says "If I thought my reply were / to someone who would ever return to the world, / this flame would stop flickering. / But since no one has ever / returned alive from this pit, if what I hear is true / I answer you without any fear of infamy. Prufrock, who has condemned himself, shall never "return to the world. " If Prufrock had asked his question, had become a hero in his own life like Hamlet or Dante, the flame in which he has suffered would have subsided. However, the epigraph also makes a social comment about how modern life can isolate and destroy individual self-worth.

Prufrock does not ask "the overwhelming question" because he fears judgment and rejection. His self-consciousness, produced by the society around him, brutalizes him from within. He says, "With a bald spot in the middle of my hair / (they will say: 'how his hair is growing thin! )" and "My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin / (They will say: 'how his arms and legs are thin! ')" Prufrock has been filled with painful insecurity because he has been "formulated, sprawling on a pin" by the

people around him. Therefore, to "return alive from this pit" as Guido says, would mean to rise above the constrictions and cruel judgementalism of modern life: a truly heroic act. Prufrock, crushed under the pressures of modern life, crumbles from within. He shuts himself off from society and the woman that he loves: all because of his deep self-loathing and fear.

This internal catastrophe describes the isolating and lonely nature of modern existence, where cultural norms become internalized and people watch themselves, as from the guard tower of a prison, hoping to catch themselves in the act of individualizing before becoming a deviant in the eyes of society. The poem's epigraph fuses all of these concepts and figures together into a summation that brings the reader a deeper and richer understanding of the poem, and another powerful set of images to describe Prufrock's self-victimization and downfall in the face of social pressure.

Contrary to what the title implies, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T. S. Eliot, is anything but a love song. It is instead quite the opposite. Although the poem is open to several interpretations, after careful reading of the poem, the several underlying themes can be expressed by one central idea. In the poem, the narrator, J. Alfred Prufrock, portrays his disappointment with the society he lives in. By interpreting aspects of imagery, speaker and intended audience, one can easily assess Prufrock's views of life. His interpretation of everyday life can be described as a vacant, bleak, and repetitive.

Early on in the poem, Eliot creates a scene that does not seem very inviting. Prufrock describes his

surrounding on an evening out with phrases that insinuate melancholy and depression. In line 6, Prufrock describes the night as "restless" and says that the streets are "tedious arguments of insidious intent". From this the reader can infer a certain discontentment that Prufrock has with his surroundings. He refers to his, and his companions', destination as " one-night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells".

Even though these descriptions leave the reader only approximately 10 lines into the poem, we already have a feeling of restlessness and dissatisfaction from Prufrock about his life. As the poem continues, the reader is bombarded with even more imagery that conveys Prufrock's discontentment with his surroundings. Prufrock talks of the "yellow fog" that "rubs its back upon the window-panes" and the "yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes". He also mentions the "soot that falls from chimneys". Later on in the poem, Prufrock refers to smoke again while describing the streets he is walking on.

All this imagery leaves the reader feeling that the place Prufrock is at is dark and hazy and not at all welcoming. Among the feelings that Prufrock expresses in this poem, no feeling comes across more clearly than his feeling of restlessness and wasted time. We get the feeling that Prufrock, who is aging, would do things differently if given another chance. In lines 49-54, Prufrock asserts his overall boredom with life. He says he has "known them all already, known them all-have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons".

From this we can infer that Prufrock seems to feel as if his life is over and he has no

more to offer. He makes statements similar to this throughout the poem. He proclaims to have known "the eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase" and the "arms that are bracleted and white and bare". We get more of a sense of Prufrock's disillusionment of life with his many references to time. In lines 24-34, he claims there is time to "meet faces", "murder and create", have a "hundred indecisions" and a "hundred visions and revisions". It is not as though Prufrock is doing this in a hopeful manner, though.

Instead we get the impression that he is reflecting on time as if it is plentiful only if you take advantage of it and perhaps he feels he did not. Another aspect of this poem that is important is the interpretation of it is the speaker and the audience. Although the audience is never clearly identified, several assumptions can be made. It seems as though Prufrock is simply reflecting on life to himself. He makes several statements that would allow a reader to arrive at this conclusion. Throughout the poem, he asks several rhetorical questions of himself. In line 62, he asks "and how should I presume? ".

He asks himself the same question again in line 68 and then follows with another "and how should I begin? ". These questions lead the reader to believe that the poem represents Prufrock's inner-thoughts about life. This is important to consider because if the audience was anyone but Prufrock himself, the poem would more than likely take a very different course. Once you get past the initial misconceptions about the poem due to its

misleading title, you can easily see that this is a poem about what happens if you do not make the most of your life. Prufrock is a character that we all can learn something from.

Through an interpretations of this poem, one can assume that even though a person's life may seem to be normal and in fact successful, sometimes that person may have a totally different view of their own life. From the poem we can conclude that Prufrock's life was like many others during the time it was written. It talks of parties, drinking, and lovely ladies. This did not, however, bring his happiness. As he aged, Prufrock was left very disenchanted with his life. In the end, he discusses how he will behave in his old age and finally describes death as what can be interpreted as drowning in the sea.

The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T. S. Eliot is about a man who is searching for something to break him for the dull life that he has been leading. In the beginning, the speaker invites us to go with Prufrock and come into his world with the statement “Let us go then, you and I. ” Through out the poem, the reader is following the speaker throughout an evening searching for the acceptance of a woman. Because of his lack of self-assurance, he fails to find the meaning and acceptance of his love. Prufrock is a timid man.

He is extremely conscious of what others think of him and this has a great effect of his actions. He has problems with speaking what he feels

and this is demonstrated when he “prepare(s) a face to meet the faces that (he) meet(s). ” He also extremely self-conscious with his appearance and thinks that people talk about what he looks like and what he wears. Other’s opinion of Prufrock bother’s him so much so that he does not want to “disturb the universe” by making an entrance into it. Finally, the last part of the poem, Prufrock show’s his final despair in life.

He can not bring himself to tell the woman that he is in love with how he really feels. However, if he ever did decide to tell her, it would come out as a mess. He finds himself with no real role in life. He is no “Prince Hamlet, nor was he meant to be,” but rather an “attendant lord,” or sometimes “the Fool. ” He hears the mermaids singing, but he thinks: “I do not think they will sing to me. ” In the end, Prufrock feels left out of society, and can not find his own place in the universe. As an old man on the beach, looking out into the ocean, he questions if he did the right thing.

But he missed everything, all because he was scared. He realizes that he has been living in an imaginary world. When this reality hits him, he drowns soul and all. This poem has always been a favorite of mine because the theme of can apply to the world as a whole. Each of us can sometime find ourselves searching for where we belong in the universe, but are afraid to act on our own desires

because of the possible outcomes. In the end, we have to make our move, and not fear rejection so much so that we pass up an opportunity of a lifetime.