Prufrock Allusions

Prufrock’s allusion in the thirteenth stanza to Hamlet, the character notorious for not being able to make decisions, provides readers with a microcosm of Prufrock’s own unraveling. The opening of this stanza reminds readers that Prufrock is characteristically quite similar to Hamlet, in terms of the pressing anxiety and indecisiveness which they both experience. As the stanza opens, Mr. Prufrock makes it clear that he is not worthy of being compared to Hamlet in any way, articulating that he is “not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be” (111). William Irwin reiterates Prufrock’s thoughts contending that, “Prufrock is no prince Hamlet, who, despite being paralyzed for most of the play, eventually does take action” (187). After contextualizing

Starting by reassuring the readers that he cannot hold a place as the prince, or even the attendant lord for that matter, reminds readers of Prufrock’s severe lack of confidence. Even more importantly, this stanza demonstrates the extent to which Prufrock can undo himself with simply a few lines of

Prufrock’s drowning ultimately provides the readers the catharsis which they so desperately desire. By the complete end of this poem, that is Prufrock’s metaphorical death, it is clear that Prufrock has unraveled completely. From the once audacious character who was ready to make his “visit,” (12) to the character who is now “drowning” because of the cited “human voices,” (131) Prufrock is experiencing his own type of peripeteia in terms of the reversal of his once authoritative, and now feeble, role within the narrative of his own life. James C. Haba argues that Prufrock has been hearing human voices throughout the entirety of this poem; from the women “Talking of Michelangelo” to the "the voices dying with a dying fall;" hearing voices is not a new thing which emerges only in the concluding stanza of this poem. Haba’s most intriguing point within this assertion is that Prufrock never explicitly describes any of these aforementioned voices as human, notably because perhaps “he does not perceive them as human” (57). Perhaps, in a shockingly similar manner to C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, Prufrock’s humanity has met withered humanity and has shown that he does, in fact, lack any substance himself by the end of his entwirren. It appears that the sound of human voices kill the person who unravels. In this case, Prufrock has completely lost every aspect of his own humanity. The voices