...John Nicholson Professor Ellenberg English 1102 12 November, 2012 The Depressing Poem of J. Alfred Prufrock Historically love songs were romantic songs written by young men to young women in order to court them. These love songs often contained an aura of sensuality and grace that emphasized passion, youthfulness, life and heroics. T.S. Elliot’s poem, ironically titled “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, simply does not follow this classic formula. J. Alfred Prufrock, the protagonist of the poem, is not the epitome of physical attractiveness, boldness and passion. Instead he is a man who wallows in his self-pity over his failure in life. T.S. Elliot uses symbols, allusions, imagery and repeated phrases to emphasize the loneliness, isolation and despair of J. Alfred Prufrock. T.S. Elliot uses allusions to contrast the greatness and grandeur of some of the figures in classic literature with the lackluster J. Alfred Prufrock. In line one hundred and ten, T.S. Elliot contrasts Prince Hamlet, a passionate and powerful figure from Shakespearean literature to Prufrock. “I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be” (line 112). “I have heard mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. In the epic “The Odyssey” mermaids used their voices to lure sailors into the water and to their deaths. However, Prufrock thinks himself as so pathetic that mermaids would not think that it would not be worth the time and effort to drown him. A more drastic moment...
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...The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock With time poems may have lost their voice, but not their importance. Up to this day, poetry is still one of the greatest forms of artistic expression; Poems speak to emotions and capture feelings. There is no right format of a poem, but yet a world of possibilities. Instead being unchangeable poems are innately open to interpretation, they should be spoken out loud in order to be “heard”, convey truth and cause impact. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot is an extremely meaningful poem; it is one of Elliot’s best-known works and without a doubt a masterpiece (Hillis). T.S. Eliot introduces the poem with a quote from Dante's Inferno (XXVII.61-66), and with that sparks our curiosity. He then makes statements and questions that perhaps everyone has done, or will do at some point in life. The poem is a legitimate work of the modernist movement, the language used is contemporary; the verses are free and the rhythm flows naturally. All of the elements in the poem are in harmony and work together in order to set the tone making up a unique poetic style. “Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky”. From its first lines, the poem is able to catch the reader’s attention by using very strong imagery. Eliot’s following verse says, “ Like patient etherized upon a table”. The reader is both amazed but also “shocked” by the author with the...
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...The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S. Eliot's "The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a poem which enters the consciousness of its title character, whose feelings, thoughts and emotions resemble a man experiencing a mid-life crisis. Throughout the poem, Prufrock questions himself. He does so not after a performed action, nor during, but nearly before. He deeply considers everything he does, so that the consequences of his actions may not attract the attention of a society he sees lurking behind him. The poem revolves around how he feels inadequate, how his hesitancy results in inaction which he then tries to rationalize. "Prufrock" is a weakened, severely fragmented personality, one paralyzed by possibility, with virtually no capacity for effective action (McNamara 358). The mood of this poem crosses the line between world and consciousness. The first three lines "Let us go then, you and I,/ when the evening is spread out against the sky/ like a patient etherized upon a table " he draws a comparison between the usual beauty and romance associated with the evening sky and the paralysis of an etherized patient awaiting surgery (Eliot 1-3). Robert McNamara, in his article "'Prufrock' and the Problem of Literary Narcissism" claims that with this descriptive metaphor the possibility at once expands and contracts because the patient may dream anything or do nothing (365). McNamara also poses a rhetorical question suggesting that this metaphor is also a symptom of Prufrock's...
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...Upon first encounter, modernist authors Virginia Woolf’s 1919 short story Kew Gardens and T.S Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock would seem to be vastly different save for their close publication dates. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a dramatic monologue – a melancholy affair, dealing with the social grievances of its titular character. On the other hand, Kew Gardens is a text easy to get lost in despite its short length. Though it can be easily interpreted as a testament to the beauty of nature and diversity among humans, there are other implications under the surface of Woolf’s writing. The two texts share an integral theme that forms their common ground: isolation and its function in society both at large and in the individual’s mind. What buoys these concepts and generally enriches each work...
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...Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock One’s social class in society and what society thinks of one has a huge impact on one’s self esteem. One is not ranked only by their money and possessions but one is also ranked by what they wear and how they present themselves (Association for Psychological Science). All of this affects the way people interact with each other and how they treat each other based on their social class (Association for Psychological Science). People from different classes have different views of life and the world around them; because of different environments they were raised and educated in. According to X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, the authors of a literature book, T.S. Elliot, the author of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, grew up of a middle class family that was well educated. Elliot went on to achieve a higher education and soon became a well-known poet, he had a high social ranking in society. In 1915 Elliot’s poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, was published in a magazine (Kennedy). The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is about a man who is very self-conscious about his appearance and worries what other people think of him. Prufrock has such a low self-esteem he is unable to approach women of a high class, because he thinks he is not good enough for them. Throughout the poem Prufrock explains and vividly describes the emotions he feels about himself and the social world around him. In T.S. Elliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock love, impassiveness...
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...Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and ‘Preludes’ suggest that the world is place of disorder and isolation; this understanding complicates the search for truth. The exploration of his time and place attempt to impose an order of society which the persona’s contradictorily feel is impossible. Stemmed from the cataclysmic consequences of World War I, Eliot’s poetic engagement investigates the role of truth and difficulty of having a unified understanding of the world. This is further explored within the establishing importance of the urban cityscape and the moral instability of the human condition. Eliot’s ambivalent engagement with the concept of truth, revealed through ‘Prufrock’ and ‘Preludes’, unifies his poetic corpus by acknowledging...
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...In the Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, Eliot describes Prufrock and how he feels in such a magnificent way that Prufrock certainly could not do himself because of his insecurity. With a dramatic monologue, Eliot allows the reader to make his or her own conclusions to add meaning to the poem. This poem is one of the most influential poems of the twentieth century because it is not like any love poem that had been previously written. In the sense of paralysis, Eliot creates a poem that generalizes Prufrock’s insecurity. The epigraph of Dante’s Inferno is the first hint of meaning in the poem. By having this piece of the Inferno included we assume the poem will be dark and hellish. The Inferno basically states that the speaker would not have shared...
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...1. T.S Elliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock has a variety of metaphors that give great meaning to the poem. One line in particular that speaks out to me is line 51: “I have measure out my life with coffee spoons”. For instance the metaphor of “measuring out life with coffee spoons” might be interpret as living his own life very carefully in small quantities. Also thinking twice of the life decisions he might make. When I think of this line, I think of someone who is precise and analytical to each decision they make because measuring life and knowing how much you need of something might be a good thing in someone’s life. The metaphor itself leaves me thinking about my own personal life and what bad things to eliminate from my life to obtained a well-measure, organized life of my own. 2....
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...T.S. Elliot fabricates the modernist tenet of questioning nature and tradition by posing rhetorical questions and using metaphor in his poem The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock, unlike Fitzgerald portraying the loss of the American Dream. Prufrock is an average man taking the reader through his divided society. Prufrock is an average man, he goes with what society expects of him, and what they make of him, “I am pinned wriggling on the wall” (Elliot 58). Prufrock is being attacked and manipulated by society here, he is “pinned” into a wall, normally when people are pinned to a wall they are being forced to comply with their aggressor’s demands. Prufrock is being forced into complying with society even though he is “wriggling” or trying to get...
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...In "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," the narrator seems to be living in a world all by himself. Prufrock appears to be at a club where there are many qualified and sophisticated women with whom to mingle; however, the narrator suffers from social anxiety, so he is unable to interact with his peers effectively. Social anxiety is the fear of interacting with other people that brings on self-consciousness and feelings of being negatively judged and evaluated, which lead to avoidance. The main aspect of social anxiety is being self-conscious, and as social media continues to progress, children are becoming increasingly more self-conscious with the way they look, dress, and talk and anything else that another person could judge them by. This self-awareness that is the root of J. Alfred Prufrock's anxiety may seem farfetched, but it is present in society today in youths, thanks in a large part to social media....
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...Jessica Diaz Eng 102 Professor Reape The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 4/15/14 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock The Inability to Love In the poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” it is not really about love in which the title could be misleading. It is about an older man’s inability to love but desperately wants the attention and affection from a woman. Prufrock has spent his entire life analyzing situations and overthinking. It is because of his insecurities, social anxiety, and now his aging appearance which has completely hindered him from doing the things he wants to do, which is to be with a woman romantically or perhaps just for companionship. First, Prufrock’s insecurities and low self-esteem affects his love life greatly. He is a lonely and unhappy man who is portrayed as someone who is in despair and helpless. He has realized his missed opportunities in his younger days and as a result he has never allowed himself to come close to a woman or fall in love. He feels as though he has never accomplished anything in his life and is aware of his weakness. He poses the inability to love and doesn’t believe that good things will ever happen to him. His desires to be touched or loved by a young woman becomes more of a fantasy rather than reality. Secondly, in the setting at the social gathering, he mentions, “In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo (13). He wonders how they could possibly be interested in him when they are discussing...
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...order to be a competely individual thinker, one must ignore what others say. such advice is certainly true to some extent; unreasonable malice must be forgotten in order to keep some level of self-esteem. however, as with most ideas, this one can not be taken in absolute form. in at least some respects, we need other people in order to understand ourselves. an excellent example of a literary character who could have psychologically benefitted from social interaction is j. alfred prufrock from t.s. eliot’s poem “the love song of j. alfred prufrock.” in the poem, prufrck desires a relationship with a woman very much, but he refrains from initiating converSATion because he fears that he could not hold the interest of a sophisticated lady. should prufrock have taken the step to accept other people into his life, he most likely would have discovered, as the reader of the poem certainly did, that he is most articulate. others would have impressed upon him the beauty of his words and his talent for prose. if prufrock would have spoken his song a loud, the ladies surely would have shown him what he himself did not understand. sincce the ladies would reveal prufrock’s talents to him, it is true that we need others in order to understand ourselves. the lesson of learning from other’s opinions of yourself extends much farther than the song of a fictional character. two days ago, in an art class, my group of students had assigned self portraits due. most of us brought in photographs of ourselves...
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...the short poem, “The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, T.S Elliot illustrates himself to be a modern man who is simply trying to grasp the attention from a lady. Prufrock seems to be an overeducated, powerful, fearful, observant, and emotionally mannered man. Some of the major images in the short poem are the sinister streets, the eating and drinking, the ocean, the body parts, and the rooms. T.S Elliot presents and adds to the development of the narrator’s character with imagery and metaphors. For instance, Prufrock is very concerned about his reputation, and he doesn’t want to stick out in a crowd. He’d rather people not notice him at all. In lines 2-3Although it doesn’t directly deal with body parts, the simile comparing the evening to a patient who has been put under anesthesia “etherised” on a surgery table prepares us for all the metaphorical "surgery" and "dissecting" that Prufrock does when he sees people only as body parts. Also, Prufrock says that the spoons he uses to measure his coffee are like a "measure" of his life, as well. Here the spoon is a synecdoche that actually refers to the whole process of sitting around in the afternoon and sipping on a caffeinated drink. Basically, he lives from one cup of coffee or tea to the next. Another example of imagery is when Prufrock presents the "claws"; the claws are synecdoche. They stand for a crab, which is the animal you’d most likely think of as scurrying on the ocean floor. Prufrock is calling himself crab-like. He is...
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...Ideas, and Questions Apprehensive Alfred: A Character Analysis of J. Alfred Prufrock 0 Posted: October 21, 2012 in Uncategorized “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot is a poem about a man who is extremely insecure with himself. Prufrock has an “inferiority complex” of sorts, rendering him unable to enter a romantic situation with women. He not only feels anxious around women, but also feels emotionally distant from the rest of society, causing him to live an awkward, lonely life, full of depression and gloom. My name is Lea Isbell. I was born and raised in Lineville, Alabama, and I graduated from Lineville High School in May 2011 as Valedictorian of my senior class. I am currently a sophomore at Jacksonville State University pursuing a degree in Secondary Education/English Language Arts. I am a member of the JSU Honors Program, and I’m attending JSU on the Elite Honors Scholarship. I have a passion for knowledge, and I am a highly self-motivated individual. My goal in life is to be a happy, knowledgeable, and successful woman, and I believe that JSU is helping me reach my goal! RECENT POSTS The Extreme Spectrums of Art: From Oversaturated Business to Pure Enjoyment “Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover” Apprehensive Alfred: A Character Analysis of J. Alfred Prufrock “And miles to go before I sleep” Modern Day Naturalism at Work: Into The Wild with Chris McCandless As I read this poem, I couldn’t help but notice how concerned Prufrock was with his appearance. He is...
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...“happily ever after” ending similar to those in fairytales. Most of the time, love songs live up to their name and are about purely about love. In T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” some of these expectations are anticipated to make their way in to the poem in some way or another, yet that is not the case; it is more the lament of a self-conscious man who lives with fear and uncertainty about himself and women. Whilst it may seem Prufrock is incapable of making an emotional connection with any female; it would seem a woman aggressive enough to get him out of his shell, yet gentle enough to deal with his sensitivity and fear would make the perfect match for him. We cannot imagine that any woman would listen to any love song by Prufrock, any more than they would find his name or his person attractive. A man named J. Alfred Prufrock could hardly be expected to sing a love song. "J. Alfred Prufrock" indicates his formality; he is overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally damaged. He is a man stricken with feelings of isolation and incapability for decisive action. Prufrock laments the lost opportunities in his life and he is haunted by reminders of unrequited love. He shows his inherent feelings of weariness, regret, embarrassment, longing, emasculation, and sexual frustration. Prufrock is first introduced at a gathering where there are plenty of women. While looking around he sees all the women “Talking of Michelangelo.” These women are middle and upper class...
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