Prufrock Metaphors

In the poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot uses many metaphors to grab our attention from how Prufrock feels from his peers. In the first stanza, it is safe to say that Prufrock feels that no woman loves him, but maybe the real issue is that he doesn’t love himself. Prufrock lives more on the opinions of others making the chance of him gaining self-confidence very unlikely. Many times Prufrock begins to think, “Do I dare?” when someone begins to speak with him.

We see how the title of the poem gives us a hint on the meaning that Prufrock must be in love, right? It is true that he is in love, but his lack of confidence needed to speak with the woman makes this poem more of a sorrow regarding a love that never comes true. Prufrock’s reasoning behind his lack of confidence is that he fears that the woman could not love him back and

He states this by saying he rates his life based on the people in it or the people who want to be apart of his life. Needless to say, Prufrock tends to ponder longly on social interactions with others. Another metaphor used is when Prufrock is compared to a yellow fog. This yellow fog “licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.” He thinks he is an outsider or that is what he is meant to be. Instead, him being like the yellow fog, he wants to give up and says he can do later what he cannot do right now. Now turning the tables, Prufrock begins to state how he could never be compared to Prince Hamlet because he believes he is not in that much importance. He instead calls himself an “easy tool” related to an attendant lord. He affirms that he would rather stay on the outskirts and put others above himself due to his lack of self-confidence and his feelings of importance. He does not feel loved by