Prufrock Analysis Essay

Instead the characters can only make meaningful connections with the city. In ‘Prufrock’ the description of the streets in the first three stanzas of the poem show a familiarity with the city. He does not simply talk about the street and the different buildings and establishment that can be found there, instead we are given detailed descriptions of the “half-deserted streets” with “cheap hotels” and sawdust restaurants”. This thorough account of the setting allows us to deduce that Prufrock accustomed with this city or at least parts of it. This familiarity contrast with the unease and unfamiliarity of Prufrock’s relationship with his romantic interest. Throughout the poem as he contemplates the possibility of a relationship there is a hesitancy
This familiarity with the city is developed further in ‘Preludes’. In the third stanza Eliot writes that the sordid images of the night that are revealed constituted the soul. These images that the night reveal would be shadows caused by the world outside, and the use of the word “sordid” makes the reader recall Eliot’s earlier descriptions in the first stanza of “smoky days” and “grimy scraps” and the second stanza’s “faint stale smells of beer” and “sawdust-trampled streets” as these would all constitute a sordid setting of a modern city.” And yet despite this distasteful description of the city Eliot still writes that the soul of the person addresses as “you” in the third stanza is formed by these images of a squalid, degenerate city. The city is a part of this person and this shows that there is a very intense bond between the two. It is as if the failure to make meaningful connections with other people mean that the people in Eliot’s poetry have to turn to the only other presence that they are familiar with in their lives and that is the city that they