Preview

Examination of the Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
951 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Examination of the Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock Essay Example
The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock is a long and challenging poem that seems rather disjointed and confusing upon first reading. It seems as though us readers will never understand the deeper meaning of the poem without getting inside Eliot's head and seeing his thought process for ourselves. However, through digging deeper and examining the piece closer we can find that this is meant to be an ironic and tragic tale of a man who feels isolated and incapable of decisive action. It is ironically called a "love song" because Prufrock longs to profess love and affection to a woman, but is too afraid to do it. "Prufrock" can be viewed as a representative character; whether he is meant to specifically represent the author or mankind in general we can only speculate. However, comparisons between the character of "Prufrock" and Eliot himself beg to be made. Eliot's earlier signature was "T. Stearns Eliot"—closely resembling that of his meticulously developed character in the poem. Eliot privately expressed frustration to friends that he was still a virgin at age 26, and had great difficulty interacting with women, which is the subject at the root of this poem. Eliot opens the poem with a passage from Dante's Inferno, specifically the passage in which Guido da Montefeltro agrees to tell Dante his personal story solely because Dante, too, is in Hell with no hope of return just like himself. This suggests that Prufrock is one of the damned and intends to speak only to those who are in his same situation. The poem itself opens with the line "Let us go then, you and I" (Eliot, line1), which can be interpreted as "you, who are like me." It is as though Eliot is inviting those of his like-mind and in the same metaphorical "hell" to accompany him through this poem just as Guido da Montelfeltro did with Dante. Eliot, or "Prufrock," proceeds to take the reader through "certain half-deserted streets" (Eliot, line 4) in a night that is described to be "like a patient etherized

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    1. How does the epigraph from Dante’s Inferno help Eliot comment on the modern world in“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”? What does it tell us about the setting of this poem? How is Montefeltro’s miscalculation related to the poem?…

    • 4195 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot represents age and time through parallelism and situational irony to show that one must not squander his opportunities in life. Parallelism is prevalent throughout the poem and is used to present age in a nagging, incessant way. The phrase “there will be time” is paralleled throughout the piece, including in the stanza “There will be time, there will be time / [...] There will be time to murder and create, / [...] And time yet for a hundred indecisions” (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 26, 28, 32). Prufrock, the protagonist of the poem, repeatedly reminds himself of how much time he has; he uses the concept of time to console himself due to his embarrassment of being too afraid to act on his desires. As the poem goes on to explain, Prufrock does not actually have an endless amount of time, and he begins to age and die. He is “unable to act [... and] he consoles himself with the repeated speculation that ‘there will be time’ to act on his social [...] anxiety” (Persoon and Watson 4). Eliot himself connects with the character of Prufrock because he was known to be extremely introverted and shy; he over-analyzed things until his chance had long passed, much like Prufrock (Bush 1). Another tool that Eliot uses to display the ubiquity of death is situational irony. In the stanza “Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table,” situational irony is used between lines 2 and 3 to show how death disturbingly appears into Prufrock’s thoughts (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 1-3). The reader is not expecting to read such a morbid phrase; “the opening line [...] invites [the reader] to imagine strolling ‘When the evening is spread out against the sky,’ but [the] expectation of romantic reverie is quickly undercut by the macabre image of ‘a patient etherised upon a table’” (Bloom, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 3). Prufrock is haunted and…

    • 2609 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poem by T.S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a dramatic monologue written in 1915. Close to the end of the poem Mr. Prufrock stated “It is impossible to say just what I mean” (104). This statement will be analyzed to discover the hidden connotation of this phrase and convey the speaker’s ultimate goal. The questions that will be answered are: What does Prufrock mean when stating “It is impossible to say just what I mean” (104)? Is this statement stated due to a lack of vocabulary, words cannot convey his actual emotions, or is he just unable to express his own emotions to the listener? Are there other underlying circumstances to cause Prufrock not to speak his mind? By the end these questions will be understood along with the true…

    • 790 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    TS Eliot’s 20th Century poem ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ is widely seen as a modernist work that Eliot employs to make the reader of the poem actually create their own opinion of what is actually meant by the poem. The modernist movement happened mainly in the late 19th to early 20th Century and started with the French poet, Jules Laforgue. It is easy to draw similarities between Eliot’s Lovesong and all of Laforgue’s works as they both employ symbolist and modernist aspects in the way they describe everything through metaphor. Throughout the poem, Eliot uses many metaphors to describe what Prufrock is seeing, ‘through [those] certain half-deserted streets.’ What Prufrock is seeing is often shown through his fragile mindset. The use of metaphor is an interesting one as, despite promoting a great sense of uncertainty with the actual events that Prufrock is experiencing, it gives the reader a very clear idea of Prufrock’s character. It is undeniable that Prufrock is presented as ‘awkward and emasculated’ as his social and sexual insecurities are portrayed by Eliot throughout.…

    • 1567 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” the various literary elements used is diction, repetition and allusion. It shows the poem main message stating that social rejection and a lack of ambusion has an outcome of a paranoid mental state.…

    • 139 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the author is establishing the trouble the narrator is having dealing with middle age. Prufrock(the narrator) believes that age is a burden and is deeply troubled by it.. His love of some women cannot be because he feels the prime of his life is over. His preoccupation with the passing of time characterizes the fear of aging he has. The poem deals with the aging and fears associated with it of the narrator. The themes of insecurity and time are concentrated on. This insecurity is definitely a hindrance for him. It holds him back from doing the things he wishes to do. This is the sort of characteristic that makes Alfred into a tragic, doomed character. He will not find happiness until he finds self-assurance within himself. The repetition of words like vision and revision, show his feelings of inadequacy in communicating with the people around him.…

    • 971 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Did Hamlet Love Ophelia

    • 1312 Words
    • 6 Pages

    3. McCormick, Frank J. "Eliot 's THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK And Shakespeare 's HAMLET." Explicator 63.1 (2004): 43-47. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Mar. 2012…

    • 1312 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Elliot, Prufrock is a man that is pessimistic, has low self-esteem, and has much internal conflict. He believes that he isn't good enough for the women of his desire; this theme also becomes a motif.…

    • 825 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot develops the character, J. Alfred Prufrock using allusions to other works of literature such as, Dante’s Inferno, Marvel’s “His Coy Mistress,”. In this way, Eliot sets forth a psychological comparison to assist the reader in understanding of Prufrock’s psyche and existentialist attitude toward life.…

    • 1043 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Prufrock Allusions

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages

    It is because he does not want the ritualistic banal talk but instead wants to talk about his fundamental question with other people. He says that if he goes to the party, he has to become a different person in order to socialize with people: “Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent” (Eliot 8-9). Also, Prufrock talks about how women talk in a schoolgirl way, name dropping to sound smart and to socialize with other people. For example, in lines 13 and 14: “In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” (Eliot 13-14), Eliot uses trochee and true rhyme to imply the women’s shallowness and how they try to just look…

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Prufrock Analysis

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Insecurities are an inevitable part of life, everyone posses their own. Similarly, in the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S Eliot, the narrator dwells on his own insecurities when trying to find his place in life. Prufrock gives any excuse so he does not have fit in with high society. Eliot's poem utilizes many repeated refrains, including: "there will be time", "for I have known" and "do I dare”, highlighting the narrator’s lack of self-confidence.…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Love is a powerful emotional drive that many authors write about. Many seek to obtain love, but never do. In the poem The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufock by T.S Elliot, this is true of Alfred Prufock. The meaning gathered from this poem is that, Prufock isn’t skilled at engaging in social intimacy because of his negative perceptions of the world. Three shifts in the poem amplify this meaning are shown in his dark descriptions of his surroundings, his self-loathing and later his doubts of the possible negative outcome of his attempts.…

    • 475 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Low self-confidence which arises due to negative interactions and relationships is explored in T.S Eliot's The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock. Prufrock's social paralysis is immediately evident through his description of the sunlit sky - the embodiment of joy, warmth and lovely thoughts - as looking "like a patient etherised upon a table". Eliot's morbid choice of "etherised" creates a silent and unmoving atmosphere, much like Prufrock's lack of social activity. He reflects on his previous experiences with women in society, lamenting that he has "measured out" his life with "coffee spoons" and yet although he has let social gathering define his life, he has "known them already… the voices dying with a dying fall". This shows that he only knows rejection too well. The repercussions of such negative experiences is highlighted throughout the poem by his low self-esteem. Prufrock constantly stops to worry about his appearance such as "a bald spot in the middle" of his hair, fretting over the most insignificant details due to his fear of "eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase… I am pinned and wriggling on the wall". He likens himself to a bug on display for the social circles -…

    • 1256 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He says “that lift and drop a question on your plate.” References to the question are found throughout the poem, before and after this line. When T.S. Eliot wrote this poem, if one wanted to visit another, it was customary to put a calling card on a plate. The person would see this request and then respond, either yes or no. Prufrock is referring to his question and whether the woman would have mutual feelings. He could even potentially be asking the question “before the taking of a toast and tea.” (34) This line reveals that Prufrock’s thoughts are consumed by this question and what will happen afterwards. Prufrock may be suggesting that he is actually going to ask the woman, just not…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    <br>The most obvious stylistic device used by Eliot is that of personification. She uses this device to create two people from her thoughts on old and new leisure. The fist person is New Leisure, who we can infer to be part of the growth of industry in the 19th century. He is eager and interested in science, politics, and philosophy. He reads exciting novels and leads a hurried life, attempting to do many things at once. Such characteristics help us to create an image of New Leisure as Eliot sees him.…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays