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Nick Adams And J Alfred Prufrock Comparison

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Nick Adams and J. Alfred Prufrock Comparison and Contrast Nick Adams of Ernest Hemingway’s The Big Two-Hearted River and J. Alfred Prufrock of T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, are both on journeys dealing with emotional devastations and the perils in life. However, differ in their personal characteristics and how they respond to their situations. A study of these two men reveals similar likeness of modern men emotional characteristics, inabilities to face the society and significant differences in how they seek their purpose and resolve in life. Nick Adams and J. Alfred Prufrock are both modern sensitive, intellectual and independent men on a present day journey trying to find meaning and their position in life. …show more content…

Nick returns from war emotionally and mentally scarred by the war while Prufrock is emotionally and mentally scarred by his insecurity with women. Nick returns to Seney, the burnout town in search of a place to restore his peace and balance on the other hand Prufrock dreams a mythical place that does not exist to find his peace because he cannot cope with his reality. Nick finds a way to bond with nature to restore his life and deal with his reality while Prufrock chooses to ignore his reality never finding a way to better deal with people around him every day. Nick enjoyed pitching his camp and feels a sense of independence while Prufrock continues to feel lonely and alienated in the city doing nothing to help his low self-esteem. Nick takes a time-out in life for a few days or perhaps weeks to go on a journey to think about his past, his present, and future, to regain his strength also to re-evaluate his life and to become more mentally stable; on the other hand Prufrock continues to remain a weak man living under false pretenses, as well as his issues with society as the years passes and he becomes an elderly man. Nick goes fishing in the water that rise above his armpits, nevertheless he remains steady and gains control of his situation; he learns to restore and regenerate his life and leaves his old life behind. Prufrock goes to the ocean and sees the women he wishes he had the youth and courage and confidence to encounter but is drowned by their voices of rejection and his fears he has felt his entire life finding no

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