Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Solitude in one hundred years of solitude
Solitude in one hundred years of solitude
The theme of loneliness in the novel
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Solitude in one hundred years of solitude
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” illustrates the desire of a man’s need to escape from his world. This idea is represented throughout the poem on how Prufrock, the man who wants to escape, views the world around him as this harsh and hostile place where no one pays any attention to him. Eliot sets up this lack of acknowledgment to show how being ignored can stir up a desire to escape. This is portrayed through Prufrock’s desire throughout the poem. However, Eliot shows that the desire to escape can indeed cause more harm than good, as Prufrock finds out. One cannot escape from reality, and living in a dream state can cause someone to experience more pain since he or she, Prufrock in this case, has to relive this process all …show more content…
Alfred Prufrock.” This can be seen throughout Prufrock’s monolog, especially given how he claims that he can see the people in the room, but they do not seem to notice him. Foucault explains,“[h]e is seen, but he does not see; he is the object of information, never a subject in communication” (200). Foucault says here that someone who is being surveilled does not know they are being surveilled; she or she is not seen as anything else other than as a source of information. This can be tied back to Prufrock who feels like he knows “the eyes that fix you in a formulated phase” (56). What Prufrock implies here that he knows he is being judged and this makes him think twice about how he should act. Due to this, he feels like he cannot start a conversation without being judged on what he is saying, so he does not try to mingle with others. Unlike Foucault’s argument, Prufrock knows he is being watched, and this is why he feels like he is worlds away from everyone else in the room. This is why Prufrock desires to escape from his world because he feels like he will never fit in, not when people are judging …show more content…
Alfred Prufrock struggles to fit in with his world because he feels like he is an outsider and because of this, he thinks he is seen as a peculiar man by everyone. Prufrock says, “I should have been a pair of ragged claws” (73). “Claws” when used here represents crab. Prufrock views himself as a crab since he feels like an outcast. It shows how isolated and different Prufrock is since he cannot interact with others even though he longs for it. He is a crab in the sense that he is small and unnoticeable. No one seems to want to acknowledge his very presence, or even care to talk to him, according to Prufrock. Due to this, he feels like he does not belong in the world he was born into. People seem to always be closed-off and harsh to him; they do not see him and treats him as if he is an outcast. This is why he sees himself far away from people, possibly in the ocean, where he can never reach their attention. Nothing he does ever result into anything because he never gets the interaction he longs to get from
"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.
Before we are introduced to Prufrock himself, we notice that the initial scenes of this poem paint a landscape of apathy. The narrator mentions little about himself initially and beckons that we follow him down into a world without consequence “of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels” (Eliot 6). The later “streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent” set the stage for Prufrock’s dilemma (ibid 9-10). Audrey Cahill says this scene foreshadows “Prufrock’s dialogue with himself, a dialogue which leads nowhere” and that thrusts the reader into meaningless chaos (6). Thus, even if these streets lead to an overwhelming question, the journey down them is rather mind-numbing and unnecessary if the answer gets us nowhere or, worse, merely emphasizes our own desolation. This is compounded by the appearance of a mysterious yellow catlike fog that “curled once about the house and fell asleep” (Eliot 22). Cahill also affirms that becaus...
The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a poem that was written by T. S Eliot. The poem introduces the character, Prufrock, as a man who is very pessimistic about everything and is incapable of change. Prufrock sees the society he lives in as a place that is full of people who think alike, and he thinks he is different from them. Though Prufrock, realizes that the society he is associated with needs a change and have more people who think differently, but the fact that he is very concerned about what people would think of him if he tries to speak up to make a change or that he would be ignored or be misunderstood for whatever he says hindered him from expressing himself the way he would like to. Prufrock then decides not to express himself in order to avoid any type of rejection. In the poem, Prufrock made use of several imagery and metaphor to illustrate how he feels about himself and the society he is involved in. Prufrock use of imageries and
In his poem Eliot paints the picture of an insecure man looking for his niche in society. Prufrock has fallen in with the times, and places a lot of weight on social status and class to determine his identity. He is ashamed of his personal appearance and looks towards social advancement as a way to assure himself and those around him of his worth and establish who he is. Throughout the poem the reader comes to realize that Prufrock has actually all but given up on himself and now sees his balding head and realizes that he has wasted his life striving for an unattainable goal.
Eliot and Kafka characterize their respective characters as having negative self-images, a prior lack of success, and as being fundamentally lonely. Prufrock views himself as undesirable, and his self-image seems to grow worse with age. While Prufrock has the chance early on to make something of his life, he sits in a room, presumably one in which there is a display of artwork, and “the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” (ll. 13-14). Prufrock goes by unnoticed next to what could be the beautiful works of Michelangelo. It can especially be presumed that he feels inadequate next to the Statue of David, a sculpture for which Michelangelo is famous. As time goes on, his feelings of inadequacy increase when he begins to fear what others will think of his aged appearance, for “They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’” and “They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’” (ll. 41, 44). Prufrock’s lack of self-confid...
Prufrocks next thoughts tell of his old age and his lack of will to say what is on his mind. He mentions his bald spot in his hair and his thin arms and legs. This suggests that he knows he is growing old, and therefore contradicts what he had mentioned earlier in the poem about having plenty of time. Throughout the poem he is indecisive and somewhat aloof from the self-involved group of women. One part of him would like to startle them out of their frustratingly polite conversations and express his love for her, but to accomplish this he would have to risk disturbing their ?universe? and being rejected. He also mentions ?sprawling on a pin?, as though he pictures himself being pinned in place and viciously analyzed like that of an insect being literally pinned in place. The latter part of the poem captures his sense of overwhelming lack of willpower for failing to act daringly, not only at that tea party, but throughout his life.
...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.
By a correct reading of "Prufrock," I mean a reading consistent with the central theme of the poet's belief made mute because the poet lives in a culture of unbelief--that is, the "silence" of the poetic vision in modernity. Prufrock renounces his inherited, romantic role as "poet as prophet" and renounces poetry's role as a successor to religion. The future of poetry may have once been immense, but that future no longer exists for Prufrock, who is faced not only with the certainty of the rejection of his poetic vision but also with a situation in which there are no grounds for rhetoric: "That is not what I meant at all. / That is not it, at all." Fear of rejection leads Prufrock to the ultimate silencing of the prophet and hero within himself, to being "a pair of ragged claws." He cannot share his poetic vision of life: to do so would threaten the very existence of that life. Paradoxically, not to share his light, his "words among mankind," threatens the loss ...
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
T.S. Eliot’s poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock has a plethora of possible interpretations. Many people argue that the poem represents a man who appears to be very introverted person who is contemplating a major decision in his life. This decision is whether or not he will consummate a relationship with someone he appears to have an attraction to or feelings for. People also debate whether or not Prufrock from the poem is typical of people today. While there are a plethora of reasons Prufrock is not typical of people today the main three reasons are he is very reserved, he overthinks most situations and he tries avoid his problems instead of solve them.
In conclusion, after exploring the theme of this poem and reading it for myself, Eliot has created this persona, in industrialised England or somewhere else. A man of low self-esteem, you embark his journey as he struggles with a rational fear of being rejected by a woman. Which gives the reader sympathy to Prufrock, as he lives within his own personal
The poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” written by T.S. Eliot is a depiction of sadness and a disillusioned narrator. While reading this poem, one senses that the narrator is disturbed and has maybe given up hope, and that he feels he is just an actor in a tedious drama At the very beginning of the poem, Eliot uses a quote from Dante’s “Inferno”, preparing the poem’s reader to expect a vision of hell. This device seems to ask the reader to accept that what they are about to be told by the poem’s narrator was not supposed to be revealed to the living world, as Dante was exposed to horrors in the Inferno that were not supposed to be revealed to the world of the living. This comparison is frightening and intriguing, and casts a shadow on the poem and its narrator before it has even begun. J. Alfred Prufrock is anxious, self-concsious, and depressed.
Those sides of Prufrock's character are shown only to the reader. The ladies have to judge him on his appearance and his behavior during the evening out. He is an older man, his hair is growing thin, and he is skinny. Eve...
T. S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" reveals the unvoiced inner thoughts of a disillusioned, lonely, insecure, and self-loathing middle-aged man. The thoughts are presented in a free association, or stream of consciousness style, creating images from which the reader can gain insight into Mr. Prufrock's character. Mr. Prufrock is disillusioned and disassociated with society, yet he is filled with longing for love, comfort, and companionship. He is self-conscious and fearful of his image as viewed through the world's eye, a perspective from which he develops his own feelings of insignificance and disgust. T. S. Eliot uses very specific imagery to build a portrait of Mr. Prufrock, believing that mental images provide insight where words fail.
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...