Prufrock Singularity

In the poem, Prufrock believes that he has endured a monotonous life and constantly expresses his discontent and restlessness. Prufrock emphasises on his discontent of what he perceived as the emptiness and meaningless of modernistic life. During the WW1 era where society was saturated by disillusionment and discontent, life was seen as unpromising and meaningless. This directly correlates to the attitude of the poem, as Prufrock constantly relays the desolateness of his life. He asserts his overall boredom and perceives life as futile when he states “I have measured my life with coffee spoons”. Through T.S Eliot’s use of metaphor, Eliot refers to the mundane aspects of Prufrock’s life as the most significant moments of his life, which confronts responders with the mendacity of their lives and reflects Eliot’s perspective. Here, Eliot’s nihilistic perspective of life directly relates to Jeanette Winterson’s critical perspective, stating that he was ‘such a sensitive soul that he was easily overwhelmed by impressions, by situations, by events, by people...he suffered continually.’ Winterson implicates that Eliot was a highly sensitive individual as such the experiences he faced personally and those that others faced deeply affect him, therefore accounting for his nihilistic view of life and humanity itself. Furthermore, T.S Eliot utilises repetition through, “For I have known them all already, known them all-” to reinforce Prufrock’s realisation of the meaningless life he leads. The repetition of ‘known them all’, infers that Prufrock’s life is absent of intrinsic value and completely worthless as he has no more to offer. Prufrock surrenders to the superficial, barren aspects of life and society, perceiving human existence as futile when he states he ‘Shall wear the bottoms of my trousers

T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is an ironic depiction of a man’s inability to take decisive action in a modern society that is void of meaningful human connection. The poem reinforces its central idea through the techniques of fragmentation, and through the use of Eliot’s commentary about Prufrock’s social world. Using a series of natural images, Eliot uses fragmentation to show Prufrock’s inability to act, as well as his fear of society. Eliot’s commentary about Prufrock’s social world is also evident throughout. At no point in the poem did Prufrock confess his love, even though it is called “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, but through this poem, T.S. Eliot voices his social commentary about the world that

T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” illustrates the poet’s fear of the fragmentation of modern society. In the poem, Eliot creates the persona of his speaker, J. Alfred Prufrock. Prufrock is speaking to an unknown listener. The persona of Prufrock is Eliot’s interpretation of Western society and its impotency at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. His views are modernistic, which idolize the classical forms while incorporating new ideas about psychology and the subconscious. Eliot illustrates his contempt for the faithlessness of modern society by illustrating its fragmentation with synecdoche, characterization of Prufrock, and allusions to literary traditions throughout the narrative. In his poem, Eliot illustrates his view of a great tradition that he is witnessing as it falls apart.

Even though the speaker’s words go back to him and recede back to himself. What Prufock can feel while roaming the gloomy and empty spaces are the boredom? The speaker observes an affinity between such environment and the ill intended argument thus, the anarchy of the modern age is well presented, such argument represent the psyche of the speaker, who is timid, and hesitant about making decisions. He is affected by the world around him. He is submerged by the overwhelming question. The question that Prufrock finds it hard to fulfill. This feature of self questioning supports the device of the psychoanalysis, through this approach, Eliot made his hero use the interior monologue to release the thoughts and doubts, through a reminiscence session the speaker flips the pages of his mind like a patient

Eliot depicts Prufrock’s personal reminiscence, Prufrock notes his decisions and revisions and further revisions, which stand as the protagonist’s fundamental remembrances as important choices inscribing his tabula rosa and formulating his essence. Additionally, Eliot presents his meager man choosing to avoid choice, which ironically reflects a profound choice; clearly, Prufrock chooses indecision and, thereby, molds his psychologically painful and hesitant essence. However, a dichotomy does exist. Perhaps, Eliot rejects Sartre’s position “you are the sole author of your own existence” since Eliot depicts vacuous, pseudo-intellectual women who talk shallowly “of Michelangelo,” rather than using the powerful freedom to choose and self-define. However, this perspective rings erroneous since the women, much like Camus’ Sisyphean understanding, own and choose to live this vacuous life, thereby constructing their own fulfilling essence.

T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” draws attention to the idea that time is of the essence. On the surface, Prufrock is portrayed as a man who is incapable of making decisions and lacks self-confidence. This is evident through his passive nature, where he continuously delays having to talk to women because he believes there is enough time. Written in the era of modernism, the reader is capable of unraveling that the poem’s true purpose was not only to show Prufrock’s inability to make decisions when it comes to love, but to show the desolation that one faces in times of a modernistic transition. Eliot depicts Prufrock’s transition phase through a gloomy and solemn tone, incorporating imagery, metaphor and synecdoche to

Unlike Oedipus, the character in T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is timid, insecure and indecisive. Throughout the poem, Prufrock is faced with a decision to approach a woman he has developed a liking to, or remain looking out a lonely window drowning his self consciousness in an ocean of self doubt. He wants to ask her the overwhelming question, but instead he purposefully avoids the woman by having personal detour conversations with himself about his self image. The entire poem is laced with Prufrock asking himself questions. He asks “Do I dare disturb the universe?”(Eliot) as if the whole world will come crashing down if he simply talks to her. He wants to wait for the right time, but in the same thought, he knows his years are running out; he mentions his bald spot and thin arms. Prufrock is so consumed with himself and how others might portray or judge him, that it is paralyzing him from social activities and gatherings. He is going through a mid life crisis that he may have brought on himself by leading an unproductive, bland life and his lack of

In line 57, Prufrock refers to himself as “sprawling on a pin.” This is a reference to the practice of sticking pins through live insects and watching them squirm, which was a common amusement for children at the time (Napierkowski 122). By establishing this comparison between Prufrock and an insect, Eliot describes the scrutiny that Prufrock believes himself to be under by relating it to a familiar, yet morbid childhood pastime. Not only does Prufrock feel the sting of a puncture wound that he is wriggling to be free of, but he is under the lens of his captors, painfully self aware and self conscious. The idea of “sprawling on a pin” also implies that Prufrock sees himself as a mere insect, a pest, lacking human capacities of expression.

By him questioning his involvement in changing the status quo shows that the world he is a part of is one without the desire for much change. With his world being much different from the other heroes’ worlds, T.S. Eliot used the nature of the world of J. Alfred Prufrock to show how distant that world is from the ones of great literature. Even when Prufrock is describing the world he is strolling through, the choice in description shows how uninteresting and unappealing the world that Prufrock is observing in the poem. Much like the heroes in literature and the ones that are not on the same caliber as those, J. Alfred Prufrock describes a world that is far from the likes of any of the heroes that he wishes he

In T.S Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Prufrock is a man who is going through a midlife crisis and the thoughts that he has ultimately lead up to his death. This is evident because as he tells this dramatic monologue, he reflects on his whole life and questions how he has lived. He is realizing that he is getting older and the thought of this frightens him. This feeling of being frightened is why he is questioning his whole life and how people perceive him. Prufrock is starting to question every decision he has made because now he believes that he is running out of time. Therefore, Prufrocks midlife crisis can be connected to the following three symbols: time, the streets, and water.

Moving from the idea of an ‘overwhelming question,’ presumably one without a clear-cut answer, to a question as simple as, “Do I dare to eat a peach?” (122) shows readers the complete deviation on the part of Prufrock. The once confident and inquisitive Prufrock, has now been diminished to a man who has lost all courage within the world he inhabits. The obscure ‘overwhelming question’ from line ten eventually develops to become the unambiguous, “Shall I part my hair behind?” (122). By emphasizing the complete shift in Prufrock’s questions, and thus thinking as an individual, Eliot is demonstrating Prufrock’s unsnarling and the complete, linear transformation of his own

In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot, he examines the many feelings that are hugely related to those of the 20th century. The 20th century was a time of war and disaster throughout our world, but it also brought with it many new ideas. Some of these ideas being new inventions and technologies, but within this essay the evolution in literature and art will be explored. In the 20th century there were many new faces to the world of literature that truly express the way literature has evolved. Within the poem Eliot mentions Prufrock being indecisive, self conscious, and believing his life is already fulfilled which are all huge topics of the 20 century and the way people lived.

His endeavour is thus superficial and futile, this is due to the comparison that Eliot made between Prufrock the representative of the unable, middle-aged man to interact, he is meditating about his situation, and he knows that such meeting with a woman is nothing. Here, there is an allusion to John the Baptist, the last Jew a prophet who was killed by the king for John was preaching for the repenting, in the time when the king couldn’t take it, so he beheaded him.Prufrock crawls towards the death, and in his way he wonders that he would get his head severed and put on the plate, in the same manner that John the Baptist died however, Prufrock was not beheaded and

In the third stanza, Prufrock switches from the present tense in which he says “Let us go” (Eliot, ln. 1) to saying “there will be time” (Eliot, ln. 23) which shows how the question he doesn’t want to answer is causing him “to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet” (Eliot, ln. 27). Every decision he tries to make leads to “a hundred indecisions, and time yet for a hundred visions and revisions before the taking of a toast and tea” (Eliot, ln. 31-34). This indecisiveness to a lack in self-confidence beginning with “’Do I dare?’…With a bald spot in the middle of my hair” (Eliot, ln. 38-40). He asks “Do I dare disturb the universe? …for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse” (Eliot, ln. 45-49), he is now beginning to feel like he is very insignificant in the universe and that he has

Our understanding of these characters suffering, in particular the avenues by which they cope with a toxic subconscious, compounds through the author’s employment of an audience, revealing the Modernists fickle, if not aloof, construction of social relations. Prufrock’s Love Song, albeit a genuine and sentimental contemplation of pursuing the ideal woman in his mind’s eye, remains a manifestation of his imagination. Admitting, “I have seen my moment of greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short I was afraid.” (Eliot 84-86) Prufrock’s song amounts to little more than a soliloquy. The reader possesses no additional perspective from which they can measure Prufrock’s worth or disposition. Instead, Prufrock’s immaning that, “I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas,” (Eliot 73-74) forces the reader to assume that the protagonist truly does not possess any redeeming qualities, other than a gifted tongue, otherwise he would be out in the world paving his own trail of success. Steve Smith’s inclusion of an additional