Poems and poetic analysis

¶ … 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 and boldly. Whereas Eliot's narrator is in despair over his inability to do what he dreams of, Frost's narrator is an inspiration who, after having taken his journey of life, assures us that "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- / I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference."

Eliot's poem begins with the narrator suggesting a walk through the evening streets, apparently with the woman he loves. However, his despair and images of death and numbness litter the poem from the start: the evening is like a patient "etherized upon a table," the streets are "half-deserted," restaurants are filled with "sawdust." Paralyzed by his indecision, imagining this fateful walk through a world of "yellow fog" and "yellow smoke," the narrator reassures himself, "And indeed there will be time/To wonder, "Do I dare?" And "Do I dare?"

Frost's narrator begins with two choices in life, two roads. Like Eliot's narrator, he needs to walk, but his roads are "grassy" and "fair," images of life, not death. He hesitates, as does Eliot's narrator, imagining both lives. "Long I stood," he says, looking down both paths. However, he chooses the unconventional path, the one that was "grassy and wanted wear." The narrator in Frost's poem hesitates, not out of fear, but out of desire, longing to experience all that life has to offer. When he makes his choice, it seems to come out of his own deep sense that this particular road is truly his.

J. Alfred Prufrock's character seems to be timid, middle aged (he has a bald spot), and though he says he is a lover, he is unable to declare his love. To declare love, it seems, is to "disturb the universe" itself. He struggles with doubt, and imagines declaring his love only to be rejected. Mermaids may sing, but not to him. Comparing his indecision to that of Hamlet's, he decides not to force the moment. This narrator decides to continue living in a life of dreamy despair, until someday he will be awakened by the human voices of real life and then drown. "In short, I was afraid." He is afraid to act, afraid to choose.

In contrast, Frost's narrator appears to be young, and to sense that life will reward him for a choice truly felt and made. He is full of hope, and he imagines that having taken the "right road," that as an old man, "I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- /I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference." These simple lines touch a deep chord in most readers, inspiring them to do what cultural critic Joseph Campbell called "following your bliss."