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The love song of j.alfred prufrock essay analysis conclusion
The love song of j alfred prufrock themes
The love song of j.alfred prufrock essay analysis conclusion
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The Love Song That was Never Sung
A love song or a profession of love usually includes a culminating point where the suitor finally professes his love toward the woman. However T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is almost a guide on how to dissuade oneself from professing love to a woman. It does this by combining several different poetic methods to display a situation of desperation and trapped isolation. Basically, Alfred is clear on the fact that he wants to be a part of this woman’s –whom he loves- life, but he cannot bring himself to the complete the act, to say “I love you.” The poem itself consists of all of the reasons, going through Alfred’s head, why he should not profess his love. Imagery, literary allusion, and structure are prominent tools used by Eliot to convey the man’s feelings in the poem. Eliot’s criticism of the modern man of his time is another strong theme in this poem. A demonstration of this is clear when Eliot presents Alfred as a modern man, and then he criticizes modern men’s being with Alfred’s thoughts. The inability of taking action, or cowardice, is evidently the over arching theme in this presentation. One of the minor themes that play well into the all encompassing theme is Eliot’s interpretation of the modern man.
The modern man, according to Eliot, is someone who lacks the ability to take a leap of faith or risk something no matter the importance. Prufrock is an extreme representation of the modern man and Eliot demonstrates this with these lines, “There will be time, there will be time...To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and ‘Do I dare?” (26, 38). Time and doubt create a barrier between Prufrock’s heart and his actions which yields him from displaying his tr...
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...role of the “Fool” found in line 118. Once again, Alfred has found even more excuses for not taking any action by relating how he believes he will fail because of his lack of great status. Therefore, he never did take that leap of faith that he earnestly wanted to.
No one can ever have courage without fear because then courage would not require so much heart and strength to muster. Even though Alfred possessed a certain fear, he did not have enough heart to be courageous and take a step bigger than those “measured in coffee spoons.” Therefore, with the use of, imagery, literary allusion, and structure, Eliot was able to create a poem that criticized the modern man that affected his heart. Just think--why men said to themselves--that they finally had a noble and courageous cause to fight for when The Great War began only a few years after this poem was published.
"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.
T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 2. ed. M. H. Abrams New York, London: Norton, 1993.
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.
In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," T. S. Eliot reveals the silent insecurity of a man, for whom the passing of time indicates the loss of virility and confidence. Throughout the poem, Prufrock struggles with his fear of inadequacy, which surfaces socially, physically and romantically. The desire to ask some "overwhelming question," of the one he wants is outweighed by his diffidence, reinforcing his belief in his shortcomings. Ultimately, this poem is the internal soliloquy of someone who attempts to know what he wants and how to get it, but whose social paralysis and lack of self-assuredness prevents either of these possibilities.
Eliot demonstrated this fact numerous times but could best be summed up by line 51, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;" showing there is no excitement going on in his life. Prufrock never progressed in this poem and led a pitiful life until his death.
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
Self-doubt is a constant emotion people in society face at some point in life. Some may struggle with it more than others. It is unavoidable and often ignored. Self-doubt is the lack of confidence in one self and one’s abilities. It is a difficult emotion to face head on and deal with, so it is simply pushed to the back burner. This becomes very dangerous because it has the ability to take over one’s life in the blink of an eye, much like Prufrock in T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock”. The longer Prufrock pushes off confronting his issues, the more powerful his self-doubt becomes. He is afraid to act without knowing the outcome, which is why he is never moving forward, and stepping outside of the box. The poem is based on a man’s inability to act and venture into the real world simply because Prufrock doubts he will ever be able to succeed in life, resulting in him ending up alone and unhappy. This is demonstrated through the alienation Prufrock experiences, the comparison Prufrock
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996.
T. S. Eliot uses The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to highlight the everyday anxiety which stops humans from living meaningful lives. A few ways in which Eliot exemplifies this everyday anxiety is through the suppression of important thoughts or questions, a mundane hyper-focus on the trivial, and a crippling fear of other’s opinions.
Impotent, pathetic, inadequate, timid. Everyone knows a J. Alfred Prufrock, and everyone has a bit of him in himself or herself. Just like Prufrock we readers have been witness to the pretentious triviality of others, the women who "come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo" (lines 13-14), and the lack of confidence which prevents the realization of desires. Eliot's careful choice of epigraph from Dante's Inferno reverberates throughout this poem as the logic behind Prufrock sharing his feelings with his listener. Just as Guido da Montefeltro is certain his listener shares a similar fate as himself, so to does Prufrock believe that his listener is like himself, and will never "turn back and descend the stair" (line 39). Prufrock's insecurities mirror our own. "He is", as Harold Bloom states in his thematic analysis, "insecure about his thinning hair and his attire, paranoid that he is being mocked. For Prufrock `there will be time,' not to experience life, but `to prepare a face,' to pose and to equivocate" (Bloom 18). Eliot's use of literary device such as imagery and repetition in the poem serve to emphasize Prufrock's hesitation, repression of desire, and indecisiveness.
WITH REFERENCE TO THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK AND PREDULES. DISCUSS HOW T.S. ELIOT CONVEYS MOOD AND THEMES. Both Prufrock and Preludes are based in the same rootless world of sordid tedium. In Prufrock Eliot is conveying a theme a strong theme and is based heavily in the Persona of Prufrock himself. Preludes is a poem of changing moods, some subtle, some profound but this time conveyed primarily through diction and repetition. One theme of Eliot's, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, is the exposure of the modern individual's inability and refusal to address inadequacies that he sees in both him and his society. Two ways Eliot conveys his theme is through the persona of Prufrock and repetition . One method used by Eliot to expose this theme is his use of the persona of J Alfred Prufrock. Prufrock is in part a shallow conformist, 41 ....My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, 42 My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin- 43 (They will say: 'But how his arms and legs are thin!')...... However, almost tragically, Eliot has Prufrock aware of the shallowness of the society to which he conforms. 26 There will be time, there will be time 27 To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet. Prufrock observes his society's ability to totally disregard any question of substance, that is, the 'overwhelming'; questions. Yet despite his observations Prufrock is not prepared to confront his society, more importantly, himself.
TS Eliot’s, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, is a dramatic monologue, from the view-point of a middle-class male. Many themes can be found in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which will later define modernist or 20th century literature. Prufrock’s ultimate problem is caused by his own weakened fear of failure and his depressed outlook of the world. If Prufrock continues on this path his future will be a loveless one, hence the irony of the title, he cannot bring himself to articulate his emotions to another woman. This poem conveys the protagonist as someone who is indecisive and often has trouble relating to women; he fears having his sexual advances turned down. Eliot, forces the reader through an arduous “verbal maze”, while slowly revealing his intentions. The themes of fear of aging and mortality, alienation and regression can all be interpreted from this poem.
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.
The author’s during the modern movement were able to capture the shift in attitude that was caused by a rapidly changing society. These attitudes inspired new techniques that had never been used before, with Eliot leading the way. In an age of concern and doubt he was considered a poet of worry and used that as a creative engine when most would be deterred. His personal pessimism and concerns were motivating factors used to create his work. His demons were not only debilitating, but inspiring and were captured with lines like “Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-(They will say: “How his hairs is growing thin!”)” (40). These lines show the lack of confidence and paranoia men had at the time. Anxiety and uneasiness were at an all time high and his poetry didn’t hide what many felt was embarrassing. Eliot did a great job of steering into the emotions of society and was awarded with the Nobel Prize for Literature as well as the Order of Merit, which is England’s most prestigious civilian award.
I also picked to write about T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” because I have written a discussion lead post of the text. The brief summary I used for the discussion lead post helped me write this midterm essay too. It took me a while to find a well written essay or critical essay regarding T. S. Eliot’s poem. However, with the aid of Professor Carlacio’s reference websites on where to find good texts, I have succeeded in finding a proper critical essay that allowed me to further understand T. S. Eliot’s poem. The critical essay allowed me to