Hamlet Vs Prufrock

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In the story “The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” we observe a timid man waste his life as he slowly runs out of time. Like Prince Hamlet, Prufrock is trapped in a hell of indecision as he fails to properly act. While these two characters would seem to have very different problems they are actually quite similar. By comparing Prufrock’s character with Prince Hamlet we are given a better perspective into both the poem and the Elliot’s mind. Both Prince Hamlet and Prufrock have difficulty making a decision. While Prufrock fails to act and talk to a woman, Hamlet cannot kill his uncle Claudius. Prufrock shares this common significance with Hamlet, but their reasons couldn’t be more different. Hamlet wishes to kill Claudius to avenge his father …show more content…

According to Frank McCormick “Prufrock inhabits a world in which something seems rotten and time seems out of joint.” Prufrock is an exile of this modern world and he watches it pass by as he has “measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Prufrock's walks through town like a “patient etherized upon a table” as he feels like he lives in a drab unfeeling dream, not belonging to this existence or this world. He shares this lack of belonging and melancholy for the world that Prince Hamlet does as he sees the world according to McCormick as the world seems to "appeareth nothing to [him] but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours" . Prufrock lives his life like a passerby and while Hamlet takes action both suffer as neither feel a sense of belonging within their homes. Both feel like strangers in a strange and foreign world, but they both also share bad relationships with women. Prufrock doesn’t understand woman and cannot summon up the courage to talk to them. Because of this he lives his life waiting for the proper time to talk to them only for it to have passed him by. Prufrock cannot ever find the courage to ask his overwhelming question and lets it go unanswered. While these characters come from completely different time periods and classes, they both suffer from an

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