A. Eliot is setting a romantic tone in the beginning of stanza one, "when the evening is spread out against the sky."
B. "Like a patient etherized upon a table" gives an imagery of sickness and "one night cheap hotels" is the feeling of dirtiness where there is only one night stands in sketchy hotels and as sleep is hard or impossible.
C. The third stanza of the "yellow fog" is both threatening and soothing since it's comparing it to a cat looking around but the gas can actually kill you going around that area. As the fog is more of a disgusting playful way. My interpretation of the fog affects my reading as horrific.
D. It's effect of the way Eliot makes the reader's eye actually see what it looks like when
Prufrock is roaming the streets
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"Let us go through certain halfdeserted streets" "The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes licked it's tongue into the corners of the evening."
E. The effect of fragments are appearing to be a dangerous type with the "yellow smoke",
"murder and create", "visions and revisions", and "toast and tea". The form a picture where Eliot communicates the readers about where Prufrock is located at and how it looks.
F. Prufrocks physical description quotes "With a bald spot in the middle of my hair [They will say: "how his hair is growing thin!"]... [they will say: "How his arms and legs are thin!"]."
Prufrocks physical characteristics connect to emotional states of being judge by the people around him.
G. "And when I'm formulated, sprawling on a pin, when I am pinned and wriggling on the wall"
Prufrock feels as if the people are to stare at him and to judge his appearance he is uncomfortable when the eyes are staring at him.
H. The repetition of "and" is the mental state of Prufrock being nervous. Which he states "And how should I presume" meaning should he ask the overwhelming question.
I. The effect of the semicolons in lines 111121 creates a relationship with the quote "No! I
"(10) which is never identified, asked, or answered in the poem. This "question" is somehow associated with his social status, but both its ambiguity and Prufrock's denial to even ask "What is it? " (11) gives some insight into his state of internal turmoil. Prufrock's dissatisfaction with his personal appearance is evidence of an underlying lack of self-confidence. Not only is he unhappy with the way he looks, having "to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet," but he is constantly afraid of what others will have to say about him.
First, Eliot weaves several layers of symbolism into Prufrocks’s narrative. This ambiguity shows largely through the vehicle of the yellow fog, which Eliot personifies with cat-like characteristics using phrases such as, “…rubs its back…rubs its muzzle on the window-panes” and “…curled once about the house, and fell asleep” in reference to the mist (Eliot). This feline depiction of the city smog creates an eerie setting which serves to further the tone of unsteadiness in Prufrock’s ramblings. The seeping movements of the fog also mirror the uncontrolled movements of Prufrock’s thoughts and his polluted self-concept which causes him to question his every move to no end (Childs). The smog is uncontainable and indefinable, much like Prufrock’s emotions when dependent upon his non-existent actions (Childs). In another instance, Eliot breaks up the deep, incessant wanderings of the speaker’s mind with the phrase, “In the room the women come and go talking of Michaelangelo” (Eliot). These women symbolize the society in which Pr...
Eliot commentary on civilization and its lack of humanity and common good toward one another, which was a common idea as the full impact of World War One came to light. Death and suffering on such a scale were unheard of. The poem represents his idea that individuals are helpless and confused by the condition of the post-war world, perhaps brought about by society’s loss of compassion. The poem is written in fragments and is confusing to navigate which amplifies this point. Loneliness is a central theme and it is manifested in different ways. The idea that love and compassion are absent from life is delivered through series of conversation between lovers and friends. A couple sits in their home, surrounded by spectacular things, however, their lives seem incomplete and lonely. In the poem one calls out to their partner “Stay with me../ Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak./ What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? '/ I never know what you are thinking. Think.” (Eliot 111-115). They are never answered. A different couple, together on what appears to be a date only go through the motions of intimacy as the date evolves, “Exploring hands encounter no defense;/ His vanity requires no response,/ And makes a welcome of indifference.” (Eliot 240-242) In both these scenes a shallowness exists, even though they are with someone, they are alone. Additionally, The impression of individuals removing themselves or disconnecting from humanity
...ing line the eloquently depicts the act of daydreaming and having a quiet fantasy abruptly disturbed by reality (131-133). It is only in his ruminations that Prufrock can escape the demands of society and the expectation of rejection.
middle of paper ... ... I feel that Prufrock will remain passive and indecisive until, like the victims of the sirens, he drowns. Eliot, lines 120 – 131.
This gives the persona paranoia as he thinks he’s not sculpted to perfection. When the poem was written, industrialisation boomed into new proportions, including mass production of items used by society. Eliot suggests an element of ‘Victorian London’, he expresses how the fog manoeuvres through the city streets. “The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes” The image of a cat seems strong to the reader’s mind, as it makes its way through the city streets, then curls up beside the fire. The smoke is given a colour (Yellow) which symbolises a form of ‘Cowardice’ which reflects Prufrock’s own emotions when interacting with a female.
The first half of the poem creates a sense of place. The narrator invites us to go “through certain half-deserted streets” on an evening he has just compared to an unconscious patient (4). To think of an evening as a corpselike event is disturbing, but effective in that the daytime is the time of the living, and the night time is the time of the dead. He is anxious and apprehensive, and evokes a sense of debauchery and shadows. Lines 15-22 compare the night’s fog to the actions of a typical cat, making the reader sense the mystery of a dark, foggy night in a familiar, tangible way. One might suppose that “In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo” refers to a room in a brothel, where the seedy women for hire talk about elevated art between Johns (13). The narrator creates a tension in the image of dark deserted streets and shady activities in the dark.
All three descriptions give a vivid image of emptiness and isolation- “half-deserted” simply by its wording, “one-night cheap hotels” through the implication of a one-night stand and “sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells” by the imagery of a dirty, hence unopened and empty, restaurant. No matter where Prufrock may go the feeling of being alone is present and he cannot escape it. The isolation of the setting is also expressed through the use of enjambment. The three previously mentioned references to empty places are each found at the end of their respective lines due to strategically placed cuts by T.S. Eliot. These cuts in the lines allow for the descriptions of these places to be undisturbed by words following them, thus allowing the reader to fully grasp the extent at which these environments display Prufrock’s
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...
Modernism is demonstrated in this poem when Prufrock talks about the setting and tone with his own modern thoughts. This poem is not set in a countryside area and shows the sadness with the movement from one society to a different society. Prufrock quotes, “With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— ” (Eliot 659). This indicates that Prufrock has nobody to speak to and is suffering from
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
This establishes Eliot's and the readers relationship to the images and ideas presented. When the poem begins "We are the hollow men" rather than "They are ..." or "You are..." the reader is immediately included somehow in this description, along with Eliot himself. This type of narration creates a sense of common "hollowness" and by the end of the poem, therefore, a sense of common responsibility and guilt. Early in the poem, Eliot creates a world of desolation. The idea of dryness is emphasized by the repetition of the word "dry" in the first stanza, where we read of "dried voices," "dry grass" and "dry cellar." When he mentions the sound of "rats feet over broken glass" he succinctly and subtly prods at our anxieties about urban disease and decay, showing us a sort of fle...
A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, by Eugene O’Neill, is a deeply autobiographical play. His life was rampant with confusion and addictions in his family. Each character in this play has a profound resemblance, and draws parallels and connections with a member of his own family. The long journey that the title of the play refers to is a journey into his past. Fog is a recurring metaphor in the play; it is a physical presence even before it becomes a crucial symbol of the family’s impenetrable confusion. It is referred to in the text as well as stage directions in this play. It sets the mood for the play in all its somber hues.
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is an elaborate and mysterious montage of lines from other works, fleeting observations, conversations, scenery, and even languages. Though this approach seems to render the poem needlessly oblique, this style allows the poem to achieve multi-layered significance impossible in a more straightforward poetic style. Eliot’s use of fragmentation in The Waste Land operates on three levels: first, to parallel the broken society and relationships the poem portrays; second, to deconstruct the reader’s familiar context, creating an individualized sense of disconnection; and third, to challenge the reader to seek meaning in mere fragments, in this enigmatic poem as well as in a fractious world.
As you read this work, you will easily be able to draw the conclusion that he expresses his personality through unruly depression, loneliness, and constant negative outlook on life. As a mentally broken man, Prufrock is constantly worrying about his lonely life style. With no one to enjoy the amazing things in his life with, he often feels the down and sinking feeling of depression, as the reader can conclude from his statement, “But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter…”(81-83). He lives alone, not married, with no friends.