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¶ … Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliott
The opening epigraph from Dante's Inferno in T.S. Eliott's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Pruforck" suggests that Prufrock, like Count Guido da Montefeltro, is giving a visitor a tour of his own personal hell. Also, at the beginning and end of the first stanza, Prufrock invites the reader to go with him to find the answer that he is trying to find. However, it's not yet quite certain what the question really is in the very beginning. Only later does it become clear that Prufrock is seeking to understand the meaning of life and love.
In the first stanza, the references to "half-deserted," "muttering," "restless," "cheap," "tedious," "insidious" suggest Prufrock's isolation and inner turmoil. "Like a patient etherized upon a table" (3) serves two purposes. First, it conveys a patient, someone who is need of help. Secondly, it represents paralysis, the inability to take action.
Lines 12-14 relate a planned visit by Prufrock to ladies "Talking of Michelangelo." One can infer by the subject of their conversation that the ladies are of a high social status and well educated. This is the first indication of Prufrock's vast insecurity regarding his ability to interact with the women. This simple rhyming...
Also, the feline is an animal frequently associated with women.
The next verse reveals Prufrock constantly reassuring himself that he has plenty of time to achieve what he wants, but also shows that time being wasted with fear and indecision. For example, "To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" (27) is a metaphor for a mask that is needed because Prufrock is terrified of other people. "Murder" and "create" are opposites that indirectly testify to Prufrock's indecision. More direct statements such as "And time yet for a hundred indecisions" (33) and "And for a hundred visions and revisions" (34) indicate the Prufrock isn't sure about anything. His preoccupation with the passing of time also characterizes his fear of growing old.
While Prufrock averred that there…
More a synopsis of emotional entanglement than a treatise on gender or sexuality, T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” encapsulates the ennui and numbness of the modern world. The speaker reveals gender only tacitly, as through two separate mentions of encroaching baldness. The choral incantations of the women who “come and go/ talking of Michelangelo” refer to a bourgeoisie existence and do not reveal gender discrimination (lines
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot, and the Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost are two poems that imagine how life might be if the narrator had acted differently. However, the two poems are almost opposites in their intent and impact. Eliot's poem is a lamentation over a life not lived, over a failure to act. Frost's poem is a celebration over an unconventional life bravely
As attitudes of literacy help students succeed in school, this is an important development to encourage. Thus, students should be encouraged to interpret "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" for themselves, learning that no right or wrong answer exists, and that literature is a conduit through which one can have a personal response. The following lesson plan can stand by itself or follow the teaching of the poem
Essay 2 (Choice 1): A Critical Analysis of Modernism and T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” takes the form of a dramatic monologue, in which the narrator, using a persona which is obviously not that of the actual author, opens up his heart and mind to the reader. Prufrock is a uniquely modernist monologue because rather than choosing someone
.. I grow old...' are the evidence of the impending fear of death. One unusual part of the poem is how Eliot, or Prufrock, puts himself into a role in one of Shakespeare's plays and then admits that he is no Hamlet by saying 'No! I am not the Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be.' Although I am guessing, I feel that Eliot was trying to say that Shakespeare's
Prince Hamlet is supported by loyal followers such as Prufrock, himself happy "to start a scene or two" (116) and to remain "Deferential, glad to be of use" (118). Women are presented in a series of stereotypes of the social set -- they sip tea, talk about art, eat marmalade, and live among porcelain as they pretend that they are more influential than they are. For Prufrock, the singing