Complications in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The complications of "Prufrock" involve from the poem's beginning a more direct transformation of the dramatic monologue than does "Gerontion" when the pronouns that "I" uses suggest the presence of an unspecified listener. In many dramatic monologues the listener is also not specified, and the reader is invited to take over the role of listener in a one-sided conversation. In "Prufrock," however, it is not clear whether a real conversation is being dramatically presented, whether the "I" is having an internal colloquy with himself, or whether the reader is being addressed directly. The "you" that is "I"'s counterpart stands in two places at once, both inside and outside Prufrock's mind and inside and outside scenes that can with difficulty be imagined based on the minimal details provided. The reader's situation resembles the position of the viewer of Velásquez's "Las Meninas," in which a mirror invites an identification with the observers of the scene depicted in the painting while the painting's geometry indicates that the illusion of that identification can be sustained only by ignoring obvious details. Reader and viewer stand both inside and outside the frame of an illusion that cannot be sustained.
Two epigraphs from Dante precede and follow the poem's title, one for the entire volume that takes its name from "Prufrock," the other for the poem itself, which stands first in the volume. Together they suggest the oscillation and indeterminacy of Prufrock's position and the reader's. In the first epigraph, Statius mistakes Virgil's shade for a "solid thing" and forgets momentarily what he himself is and can do. In the second, Guido da Montefeltro predicates his address to Dante on the opposite mistake, that Dante is not human and cannot carry his words further. Like Statius and Guido, the reader who tries to pin down the indeterminate identities and locations of "you and I" in the poem will always be mistaken. What is taken for a shade or a figment may be flesh and blood, and what is taken for living flesh may be only a figment in a perpetual instability that marks "Prufrock," like "Rhapsody," as the transforming end of a sequence of poems to which it can be said to belong but some of whose implications it subverts. The subversion occurs largely through the removal of those referential, seemingly stable elements of scene and character that contribute to making the illusion of hearing a personal voice in poetry possible.
"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 beginning of the poem is pre -empted by an excerpt from Dante's Inferno which Eliot uses to begin his exploration of Prufrock's self-consciousness. By inserting this quote, a parallel is created between Prufrock and the speaker, Guido da Montefeltro, who is very aware of his position in "hell" and his inability to escape his fate. Prufrock is also very aware of his current status, but doesn't realize until the end that he is unable to rise above it. The issue of his fate leads Prufrock to an "overwhelming question.
Often in stories of self-realization and self-love, there is an incident that is often overlooked. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, such is the case. While many people tend to believe that Janie’s relationship with Teacake was the central time when she realized who she was, Her marriage with Joe Starks is often ignored in the big picture. Janie realized what she didn’t want and not to settle and that helped her accept Teacake later on in the book. Jody’s ideals did not mesh with a Janie and caused a lot of conflict. Throughout their twenty-year marriage, three events symbolized the rift between Jody and Janie; The first was his refusing to allow Janie to speak at the towns opening ceremony, Janie’s public response to Jody’s ridicule of her, and Jody’s rejection of Janie while on his deathbed.
Janie is the novel's hero. The story is told in first person as she narrates the story of her life to her friend Pheoby Watson. This is a story of one woman's search for love in the world. From the beginning of Janie’s story under the pear tree, she tries desperately to “find who she is” and this consist of obtaining three different husbands. Janie has gone through a lot in her life time the fact that she is a product of white rape - causes her to be lighter-skinned than other black women. Because Janie is an “unusual” woman concerning her physical characteristics this is a major factor during her marriage to Joe Starks and interactions with Mrs. Turner.
prophet like Lazarus or a prince like Hamlet, and he slips into the safety of a
The growth of the Janie has experienced three times in her marriage, Janie gradually got rid of all sorts of obstacles to its implementation ego strength, she was from a pure cowardice little girl growing into a mature woman with feminist consciousness. Even though their eyes were watching god, however the story implied that the black women gradually know themselves, grasp myself, and become a master of their own fate, they do not need to rely on others for the survival. From the novel, we can clearly realize that this novel is a tribute to the female image, and finally they have been holding on to defeat fate, which is arranged beforehand, and they won and become the masters of their
Prufrock’s insecurities make him feel like an outsider. “In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.” He wants to approach the young
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 ...
There are a few instances in the poem that refer to Prufrock as an introverted person distinguishing him from typical people today. For instance, in the poem Prufrock says “I
The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, a poem created by the late T.S. Eliot who was a poet in the 20th Century (when Europe was its peak of industrialisation) and this is considered to be one of his highly regarded pieces alongside (The Wasteland). This poem is a monologue of the persona of J. Alfred Prufrock, (the speaker of the poem) a middle aged man, intellectual and described with little self-confidence with himself who has problems in dealing with self-image and anxiety. He’s a solitary man who is achingly shy and little courage, when being isolated, he isn’t subjected to a lifestyle of a social life and this halts him when it comes to speaking with a female. The title to me is ironic, Eliot titled it a ‘Lovesong’, therefore, the language
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is an ironic depiction of a man’s inability to take decisive action in a modern society that is void of meaningful human connection. The poem reinforces its central idea through the techniques of fragmentation, and through the use of Eliot’s commentary about Prufrock’s social world. Using a series of natural images, Eliot uses fragmentation to show Prufrock’s inability to act, as well as his fear of society. Eliot’s commentary about Prufrock’s social world is also evident throughout. At no point in the poem did Prufrock confess his love, even though it is called “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, but through this poem, T.S. Eliot voices his social commentary about the world that Prufrock lives in.
He does not ask questions such as a “Do I dare?” The poem also relates Prufrock’s shameful life to Dante’s Inferno. In regards to the fact that he is in a dark lonely place where his life has no meaning and has little sureness in himself. Dante’s is confined to hell, where Prufrock is living a lonely life within the city. Another reference to Dante’s Inferno quotes a false counselor in Hell who will tell his crime only to those he thinks will keep it a secret. Prufrock, too, would not want his story of his life to be known he wants to create “To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet” but what he has to hide is insignificant. There is also reference to the Italian renaissance painter Michelangelo with the women coming and going talk to Michelangelo, that gets you to think that these women can be those of higher class. This may be in regards to the fact that Prufrock may be afraid of the fact that he will not fit the needs of these
Written in two different literary periods “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” share various similarities with one another. While Browning can not be credited for inventing the dramatic monologue himself it was his fondness and skill for it that raised it to a highly sophisticated level. He also helped increase its popularity both with poets and the general public. His huge success with dramatic monologues served as inspiration for Eliot years later. Based on his work, Eliot was clearly influenced by the dramatic monologue style used by Browning. However, despite their similarities there are stark differences between the poems by Browning and Eliot. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” shows a clear movement away from the Victorian style found in “My Last Duchess” and goes towards Modernism.
Prufrock, the narrator of the poem, is a middle-aged man who is living a life void of meaning and purpose. His thoughts are depressing as he mulls over his dull, uneventful life. One of his most crippling traits is cowardice. He's v...
Alfred Prufrock, the reader expects some sense of romanticism in the poem; Prufrock did everything to avoid such thing. He stands thinking for sometime because he cannot decide if he should talk to a girl or not. Towards the end Prufrock decides against it, therefore not finding the answers that the headnote from Dante set. He is too afraid to talk to a girl, like a young boy thinking about approaching his crush, only Prufrock is an older man. His confidence is so shot down that even seeing women essentially makes him feel terrible about himself.