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The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock conclusion
The love song of j alfred prufrock explained
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The poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” contains a variety of ways T.S. Eliot shows how Prufrock is living in his own hell. The darkness can not be contained in this poem. It is lonesome, sad road Prufrock is on. Hell is described as one of the worst places to be. Hell is never ending, and the souls that are there are forever slaves to dreadful place. One can endure hell in their everyday life. The scenarios Prufrock describes is definite ways he is living through his own hell. To begin with, in the first stanza Eliot does not take it easy on the reader. The poem starts out with heavy, detailed lines. For example, “Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster shells”. Restless nights are hard to deal with. When a …show more content…
Eliot describes Prufrock’s appearance. “With a bald spot in the middle of my hair….Do I dare Disturb the Universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse”. Prufrock having a bald spot is starting to hurt his confidence in himself. He is questioning if people will look at him and laugh. Having this attitude about yourself, and the lack of confidence is another way he is going through hell. Prufrock even asks himself is he dares to disturb the universe as if he is totally worthless. He cares so much about his appearance because that is how he finds his self worth. There is so much more to a person than just how they look. There could be so much more on the inside of a person to define their self worth. The next line about time, it seems as if he does not want to make a choice. The idea of their being more time means that Prufrock does not have to do anything now. That he can just sit back and not disturb the universe. It sounds like the time he has is a trap, and no matter what it will always be there. It can not get any better since he is not willing to make the correct choice to get out of his own misery and
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is about a timid and downcast man in search of meaning, of love, and in search of something to break from the dullness and superficiality which he feels his life to be. Eliot lets us into Prufrock's world for an evening, and traces his progression of emotion from timidity, and, ultimately, to despair of life. He searches for meaning and acceptance by the love of a woman, but falls miserably because of his lack of self-assurance. Prufrock is a man for whom, it seems, everything goes wrong, and for whom there are no happy allowances. The emptiness and shallowness of Prufrock's "universe" and of Prufrock himself are evident from the very beginning of the poem. He cannot find it in himself to tell the woman what he really feels, and when he tries to tell her, it comes out in a mess. At the end of the poem, he realizes that he has no big role in life.
The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a poem that was written by T. S Eliot. The poem introduces the character, Prufrock, as a man who is very pessimistic about everything and is incapable of change. Prufrock sees the society he lives in as a place that is full of people who think alike, and he thinks he is different from them. Though Prufrock, realizes that the society he is associated with needs a change and have more people who think differently, but the fact that he is very concerned about what people would think of him if he tries to speak up to make a change or that he would be ignored or be misunderstood for whatever he says hindered him from expressing himself the way he would like to. Prufrock then decides not to express himself in order to avoid any type of rejection. In the poem, Prufrock made use of several imagery and metaphor to illustrate how he feels about himself and the society he is involved in. Prufrock use of imageries and
Eliot and Kafka characterize their respective characters as having negative self-images, a prior lack of success, and as being fundamentally lonely. Prufrock views himself as undesirable, and his self-image seems to grow worse with age. While Prufrock has the chance early on to make something of his life, he sits in a room, presumably one in which there is a display of artwork, and “the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” (ll. 13-14). Prufrock goes by unnoticed next to what could be the beautiful works of Michelangelo. It can especially be presumed that he feels inadequate next to the Statue of David, a sculpture for which Michelangelo is famous. As time goes on, his feelings of inadequacy increase when he begins to fear what others will think of his aged appearance, for “They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’” and “They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’” (ll. 41, 44). Prufrock’s lack of self-confid...
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” tells the speaker’s story through several literary devices, allowing the reader to analyze the poem through symbolism, character qualities, and allusions that the work displays. In this way, the reader clearly sees the hopelessness and apathy that the speaker has towards his future. John Steven Childs sums it up well in saying Prufrock’s “chronic indecision blocks him from some important action” (Childs). Each literary device- symbolism, character, and allusion- supports this description. Ultimately, the premise of the poem is Prufrock second guessing himself to no end over talking to a woman, but this issue represents all forms of insecurity and inactivity.
Prufrocks next thoughts tell of his old age and his lack of will to say what is on his mind. He mentions his bald spot in his hair and his thin arms and legs. This suggests that he knows he is growing old, and therefore contradicts what he had mentioned earlier in the poem about having plenty of time. Throughout the poem he is indecisive and somewhat aloof from the self-involved group of women. One part of him would like to startle them out of their frustratingly polite conversations and express his love for her, but to accomplish this he would have to risk disturbing their ?universe? and being rejected. He also mentions ?sprawling on a pin?, as though he pictures himself being pinned in place and viciously analyzed like that of an insect being literally pinned in place. The latter part of the poem captures his sense of overwhelming lack of willpower for failing to act daringly, not only at that tea party, but throughout his life.
T.S. Eliot has been one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. His poem“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, is different and unusual. He rejects the logic connection, thus, his poems lack logic interpretation. He himself justifies himself by saying: he wrote it to want it to be difficult. The dissociation of sensibility, on the contrary, arouses the emotion of readers immediately. This poem contains Prufrock’ s love affairs. But it is more than that. It is actually only the narration of Prufrock, a middle-aged man, and a romantic aesthete , who is bored with his meaningless life and driven to despair because he wished but
Eliot uses the reference of time often in order to show the state of mind of Prufrock. The repetition of words like vision and revision exemplify his obsession with time and his indecisiveness. The time allusions show that Prufrock is getting increasingly older. For example, in line 51 he says, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”(51)
The first stanza introduces Prufrock’s isolation, as epitomized metaphorically by “half-deserted streets” (4): while empty streets imply solitude, Eliot’s diction emphasize Prufrock having been abandoned by the other “half” needed for a relationship or an “argument” (8). Hoping for a companion, Prufrock speaks to the reader when saying, “Let us go then, you and I” (1), as he needs to address his lament to an audience; conscious of the reader’s curiosity regarding the “overwhelming question,” (10) Prufrock answers, “Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’” (11). (The likely explanation for Eliot’s inconsistent use of you in this stanza is Prufrock probably meaning you as “To lead one,” as he refers to himself and not the reader in line 10.) Eliot continues the metaphor of Prufrock’s lonesomeness by anthropomorphizing the “yellow fog” and “smoke” (15, 16) to signify Prufrock, who interacts not with people, but only the environment in the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas. Clearly it is Prufrock who “rubs [his] muzzle on the window-panes” (15, 16), passively lets “fall upon [his] back the soot that falls from chimneys” (19), “slides along the street” (24), and performs the actions also described; also, the opacity of “fog” and “smoke” symbolizes the difficulty with which readers perceive Prufrock’s true character, further separating ...
For example in the poem he says, “…Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair- [They will say: “How his hair is growing so thin!] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necklace rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin- [They will say:” But how his arms and legs are so thin!”]…” This quotation is an example of Prufrock overthinks situations. He wants to go to the party and ask a question but cannot stop thinking about if he will be judged by the people at the party because of his hair balding and thin body. But a typical person today would acknowledge the fact that the people who will attend the party will be concerned with the party they are attending rather than minor details on him. This is another instance where Prufrock is not typical of people today. People today do tend to over think things but Prufrock takes it to another level with overthinking about things normal people wouldn’t and allows it to affect each choice he makes even the simplest ones in his
In conclusion, after exploring the theme of this poem and reading it for myself, Eliot has created this persona, in industrialised England or somewhere else. A man of low self-esteem, you embark his journey as he struggles with a rational fear of being rejected by a woman. Which gives the reader sympathy to Prufrock, as he lives within his own personal
“The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” uses interior monologue, however Eliot presents his narrator’s thoughts through stream of consciousness, which allows the reader direct access to Prufrock’s thought processes. Each stanza is somewhat disjointed, jumping from biblical allusions and imaginary landscapes to ...
Prufrock’s social world is initially revealed as he takes the reader on a journey. Through the lines 1-36, the reader travels with Prufrock through the modern city and its streets as we experience Prufrock’s life and explore his surroundings through his eyes. From the very beginning, the city is portrayed as bleak and empty with no signs of happiness. The setting as Prufrock walks through the street appears to be polluted, dirty, and run-down, as if it is the cheap side of town, giving the feeling of it being lifeless, still, eerie, sleepy and unconscious. Eliot uses imagery, from the skyline to half-deserted streets, to cheap hotels to sawdust restaurants to demonstrate the loneliness and alienation the city possesses. The city Prufrock resides in is, in a way, a shadow of how he is as a person, and the images of the city speak to some part of his personality. Just as the skyline is described as “a patient etherised upon a table” (3), it foreshadows and hints that Prufrock has an...
The title T. S. Eliot chose for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is ironic. Mr. Prufrock does not love anyone, nor does he believe he is loved. He has disdain for the society of which he wishes he were a part, and he believes society views him no differently. The imagery of Mr. Prufrock's thoughts provide the audience a more detailed insight into his character than had Mr. Eliot simply listed Mr. Prufrock's virtues and flaws. Mr. Prufrock is seen as an exaggeration or extreme for the sake of literary commentary, but the world has many Prufrocks in many differing degrees, and T. S. Eliot has made them a little easier to understand.
He continues on in the poem where he says, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” (Eliot, pp5). This one line is powerful imagery where Prufrock realizes that his life was very trivial. Furthermore, the poem proceeds later, “And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat,…/ and snicker.../ And in short, I was afraid” (Eliot, pp7). Here, Prufrock is alluding to death coming to claim him for the afterlife.
This constant reference to the inadequacies of society leads the reader to question how one could bare to live in a society such as this. Prufrock eludes to his world being disrupted by the human voices that wake him up “We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us... and we drown.” This outlines out the struggle that Prufrock has between the real world and the imaginative world of the sub conscious. While he enjoys this world, it is constantly disrupted by the wows of the real