J Alfred Prufrock

When reading the title of T.S Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” it is believed we are in store for a poem of romance and hope. A song that will inspire embrace and warmth of the heart, regretfully this is could not be further from the truth. This poem takes us into the depths of J. Alfred Prufrock, someone who holds faltering doubt and as a result may never come to understand real love. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” takes us through Prufrock’s mindset and his self-doubting and self-defeating thoughts. With desolate imagery, a tone that is known through the ages and delicate diction we see a man who is insecure, tentative and completely fearful.

Eliot begins “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by using an epigram from Dante’s Inferno to set the theme of the poem. By alluding to a story about a journey through Hell, readers can infer that Prufrock will also take readers on a journey through Hell, only this time it is a living hell. Upon examining the first couple of stanzas, it is clear that Prufrock is afraid of living his life, so much so, that time has become illusory to him. Eliot writes, “Time for you and me, and time for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of a toast and tea” (369). The poetic device of repetition to portray never-ending time proves Prufrock fools himself into believing he has all the time in the

The first flag that is raised to our attention of prufrock being gay is the fact that not once do we hear the name of his so called lover or even him calling her a lady. Therefore we might be able to conclude that this lady is in fact a guy. This would in turn bring up many situations in the story that are not brought to light if this story was read in different text.

T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a modernist poem about an old man conjuring up the courage to ask the woman he loves possibly to marry him. The Dante’s Inferno quote at the beginning of the poem is the key to understanding how J. Alfred Prufrock is feeling because the speaker of that story, Guido da Montefeltro, has been imprisoned in the flames of hell and is trapped in hell for eternity. J. Alfred Prufrock is in his own kind of hell, like Guido da Montefeltro, by describing a bleak, depressed city with skies that send out messages of sorrow and hopelessness all over. Prufrock is paralyzed in his own mind by his overanalyzing thoughts and he cannot act, “Like a patient etherized upon a table…”

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?

The monologue style of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” is interesting because it doesn’t clearly identify whether or not the speaker is talking to another person or his inner self. A monologue is like a conversation, but uses the language of poetry. This particular dramatic monologue tells the story of J. Alfred Prufrock, a man who is so wracked with insecurity and worried about how others perceive him that he is afraid to live his life.

Prufrock begins his “Love” song with a peculiar quote from Dante’s Divine Comedy. It reads: “If I believed that my answer were to a person who could ever return to the world, this flame would no longer quiver. But because no one ever returned from this depth, if what I hear is true, without fear of infamy, I answer you.” In the Divine Comedy these lines are spoken by a damned soul who had sought absolution before committing a crime. I think that Eliot chose this quote to show that Prufrock is also looking for absolution, but for what he is unsure.

Prufrock avoids life not only through trite physical worries, but through numerous mental labors as well. These mental labors range from imagining himself as being completely vulnerable "Like a patient etherized upon a table" to Prufrock looking at the superficiality of his life. The lines "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons", "…setting a pillow or throwing off a shawl", and "I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled" show the shallowness of thought he uses to avoid coming to terms with his old age.

T.S. Eliot, a notable twentieth century poet, wrote often about the modern man and his incapacity to make decisive movements. In his work entitled, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'; he continues this theme allowing the reader to view the world as he sees it, a world of isolation and fear strangling the will of the modern man. The poem opens with a quoted passage from Dante's Inferno, an allusion to Dante's character who speaks from Hell only because he believes that the listener can not return to earth and thereby is impotent to act on the knowledge of his conversation. In his work, Eliot uses this quotation to foreshadow the idea that his

Prufrock's fear to live never allowed him to accomplish anything. The issue of death emerged again in lines 26-27. In these lines Eliot said, "There will be time, there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet."(ll. 26-27 Eliot) This statement showed that Prufrock spent the majority of his time preparing for death. In lines 37-39 Eliot said, "And indeed there will be time to wonder, 'Do I dare?' and 'Do I dare?' time to turn back and descend the stair."(ll. 37-39 Eliot) This line showed that Prufrock felt that he was bound to Hell. Prufrock constantly lived in fear of death. This fear caused him to not be able to live. In the second section Prufrock realized the error of his ways. He came to the understanding that being afraid to live was no way to live his life. Eliot summed up the entire reasoning of Prufrock in the following line, "And in short, I was afraid."(l 86 Eliot) Prufrock spent his entire life in a wasteland, because he did not have the courage to live. At this point he knew that there was no opportunity to regain the years that he lost. In lines 92-98 Eliot said, "To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it towards some overwhelming question, To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all'- If one, settling pillow by her head, Should say: 'That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.'"(ll. 92-98 Eliot) These lines showed how

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Elliot is a poem that tells a character’s story with the use of emotions and imagery. The character J. Alfred Prufrock is first introduced as taking a walk and describing the surroundings such as vacant streets and dreary sights. Women are also introduced as talking about Michelangelo. The setting is covered in a yellow fog that stretches over every detail of the town. Prufrock’s emotions at first seems to be confident with the ladies. As the poem progresses, Prufrock is seen more as an average middle-aged man, but also a sad honest man. He seems to stick to a routine and does not stray from it much. His bland personality is not much of an appeal to the women, thus making him pathetic. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, T.S.

In the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", Modern poet T.S. Eliot makes use of a man, Alfred Prufrock, who is tormented by his inactivity in the physical and intellectual arenas in his life to provoke a sense of disconnection from the modern world. His utilization of an epigraph that alludes to Dante's Inferno and repetition that dramatizes self-criticism creates a parallel between hell and earth; shedding light upon the constricting qualities of society that cause the narrator to be a passive spectator in life and become an antithesis of the joy a long song entails. The poem begins with an epigraph that sets a tone for the poem by creating links between fantasies and reality that directly correlate with Prufrock's self-views and

And in short, I was afraid” (84-86), Prufrock finally fully admits his fear in this line and it shows just how afraid he is. These lines add emphasis to what is already said, he has planned so much that he saw his death and that is the true source of his fear and want to change. All of his life has been this perfect image and he is starting to wonder “ Would it have been worth while, / To have bitten off the matter with a smile, / To have squeezed the universe into a ball / To roll it towards some overwhelming question,” (90-93). We can see through these lines that Prufrock’s previous life was a simple one, and that he now wants to know what it would be like to ask the really hard questions about life that might not have answers.

This lack of willpower is displayed in line 111 where Prufrock states: "I am not Prince Hamlet." He will not, like Shakespeare's famous character, shake off his doubts and "force the moment to its crisis" (80). Prufrock feels more like the character Polonius from the same Shakespearian work. He feels that he is only able to dream of romance, and never truly experience it for himself. Instead he will have his trousers rolled at the bottom as a statement of fashion and "walk upon the beach" (123). He follows up with a romantic vision of mermaids singing to him from the sea, but deep down he knows they will not sing to him. Prufrock is caught in a sort of paralysis where no matter how much he wishes to, he finds himself unable to act on his own impulses and desires. Because of this affliction, Prufrock will continue living in a world with daydreams of romance until he finds himself awakened by the human voices of real life in which, as very grimly states in the final line of the poem, he will drown.

These issues- the introversion, the self degradation- are joined by a myriad of other psychological disturbances that are all derived from inability to fulfill sexual desire. The poem becomes an introspective examining of the faults in the mind of a man. By including the quote from Dante's Inferno, and creating a character that is so introverted Eliot suggests that Prufrock is examining his own mind and delving into the most delicate of problems.