Preview

Analysis of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1843 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot is a poem I would not recommend anyone still trying to hang on to his or her youth. T. S. Eliot’s poem, about a man named J. Alfred Prufrock, is a pessimistic poem looking at the seemingly wasted life of an aging man. The poem is told from the viewpoint of a very sad man named J. Alfred Prufrock. The poem takes place in the city of St. Louis, which T. S. Eliot does not portray in a very good light. T. S Eliot’s creation of a depressing mood, powerful metaphors, and the character of J. Alfred Prufrock all result in a very disheartening poem, not enjoyable to the middle-aged reader, especially male readers. T. S. Eliot creates an uneasy mood from the very beginning. The first stanza of his poem describes the setting of the poem, “When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table;(lines 1-2)”. Here, Eliot could have picked any number of metaphors to describe the evening, but he chooses to describe it using the image of a person drugged and paralyzed on a table. At first, the choice of metaphor seems odd, but as you read it becomes clear that this particular metaphor was used to create mood. Had Eliot described the evening being spread out against the sky like a picnic blanket on the grass, we would have gotten a completely different vision of the night, and therefore a different mood. In the same stanza, Eliot goes on to note the “sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells (ln. 7)." Here the idea of sawdust shows us that the quality of the restaurants is not very high, and instead of having oysters—which are considered an aphrodisiac-- they only have the remnants—the oyster-shells. Eliot also goes on to tell us the “Streets that follow like a tedious argument/ Of insidious intent (l. 8-9)”. Here is another powerful metaphor; the streets to do not simply wind about like the loops in bows. These streets go back and forth like an argument with sinister intent. The next stanza

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Prufrock, throughout lines 26-30, not only delineates his insecurity but also his indecisiveness and fear of rejection. These few lines give readers a snapshot of what the poem consists of: Prufrock’s constant self-doubt, ambivalence and passivity. Furthermore, it reveals that he overanalyzes situations to the point where it is unhealthy. As a result of his negativity and lack of initiative, Prufrock sends the message that he is an unhappy and lonely man who yearns for love but cannot even bring himself to open up to a woman, let alone ask her this “overwhelming question”.…

    • 952 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot represents age and time through parallelism and situational irony to show that one must not squander his opportunities in life. Parallelism is prevalent throughout the poem and is used to present age in a nagging, incessant way. The phrase “there will be time” is paralleled throughout the piece, including in the stanza “There will be time, there will be time / [...] There will be time to murder and create, / [...] And time yet for a hundred indecisions” (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 26, 28, 32). Prufrock, the protagonist of the poem, repeatedly reminds himself of how much time he has; he uses the concept of time to console himself due to his embarrassment of being too afraid to act on his desires. As the poem goes on to explain, Prufrock does not actually have an endless amount of time, and he begins to age and die. He is “unable to act [... and] he consoles himself with the repeated speculation that ‘there will be time’ to act on his social [...] anxiety” (Persoon and Watson 4). Eliot himself connects with the character of Prufrock because he was known to be extremely introverted and shy; he over-analyzed things until his chance had long passed, much like Prufrock (Bush 1). Another tool that Eliot uses to display the ubiquity of death is situational irony. In the stanza “Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherised upon a table,” situational irony is used between lines 2 and 3 to show how death disturbingly appears into Prufrock’s thoughts (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 1-3). The reader is not expecting to read such a morbid phrase; “the opening line [...] invites [the reader] to imagine strolling ‘When the evening is spread out against the sky,’ but [the] expectation of romantic reverie is quickly undercut by the macabre image of ‘a patient etherised upon a table’” (Bloom, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” 3). Prufrock is haunted and…

    • 2609 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T.S. Elliot, the speaker is Prufrock himself. He is debating with the two conflicting sides of his personality. One wants him to propose love, the other wants him to hold back. The setting is most likely in the early 1920s or so, taking into consideration the afternoon tea, the shawls the ladies wear, and "the skirts that trail along the floor"(102). The situation is fairly straightforward in some respects. Alfred Prufrock is on his way to a tea in the mid-afternoon and is indecisive as to whether he should declare his love or not.…

    • 1687 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    TS Eliot’s 20th Century poem ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ is widely seen as a modernist work that Eliot employs to make the reader of the poem actually create their own opinion of what is actually meant by the poem. The modernist movement happened mainly in the late 19th to early 20th Century and started with the French poet, Jules Laforgue. It is easy to draw similarities between Eliot’s Lovesong and all of Laforgue’s works as they both employ symbolist and modernist aspects in the way they describe everything through metaphor. Throughout the poem, Eliot uses many metaphors to describe what Prufrock is seeing, ‘through [those] certain half-deserted streets.’ What Prufrock is seeing is often shown through his fragile mindset. The use of metaphor is an interesting one as, despite promoting a great sense of uncertainty with the actual events that Prufrock is experiencing, it gives the reader a very clear idea of Prufrock’s character. It is undeniable that Prufrock is presented as ‘awkward and emasculated’ as his social and sexual insecurities are portrayed by Eliot throughout.…

    • 1567 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “A Love Song for Bobby Long” written by Grayson Capps and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” written by TS Eliot remind the world of men who struggle with the demons of life. The little voices in your head saying “I don’t think you can do that.” These voices cause you to doubt yourself and your talents. They take the life out of you, and cause you to wonder if you even have a purpose here on earth. Now let’s take a deeper look into these poems and closely analyze their similarities and differences.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    1. How does the epigraph from Dante’s Inferno help Eliot comment on the modern world in“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”? What does it tell us about the setting of this poem? How is Montefeltro’s miscalculation related to the poem?…

    • 4195 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    T.S. Eliot conveys the deteriorating state of humanity in the beginning of the twentieth century in the poems The Hollow Men and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Events, such as World War I, from the early twentieth century have influenced Eliot to express the superficiality and materialistic desire for wealth in modern society. The changing modern world with fallen morals and events such as the suffragette movement that brought a greater degree of freedom for women, have influenced Eliot to write about a breakdown in communication and society and its movement away from religion. Eliot uses a range of techniques such as metaphors and juxtaposition in the poems, The Hollow Men and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to convey the deteriorating state of humanity.…

    • 977 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Straight from the introduction of the poem, Eliot already starts to utilise imagery to describe the emotions and themes that the poem conveys. The line ‘Like a patient etherised upon a table’ suggests that there is something wrong with the evening, almost as if it were suffering or dying. As this simile is used very early in the poem, we are introduced to a persona living in a corrupted world, thus a sense of urban alienation. Later in the fourth stanza, the fog and smoke is said to be yellow, supernaturally describing the atmosphere as dirty and possibly sick, also contributing to this sense.…

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    T. S. Eliot was the dominant force in twentieth-century British and American poetry. With poems such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, he introduced an edgy, disenchanted, utterly contemporary version of French Symbolism to the English-speaking world. Most poets recognize that in producing a sensational poetic work, many concerns arise with the use of various literary tools to convey ideas, opinions or simply an observation. Through vivid imagery and metaphors, TS Elliot in his "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" delivered readers the thoughts and emotions of a tormented character J. Alfred Prufrock and also reflected self-debasing nature of a passive lover's effort that kept deteriorating till it finds hellish discomfort in isolation.…

    • 1197 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In his poem Eliot paints the picture of an insecure man looking for his place in society. Prufrock has fallen in with the times, and places a lot of burden on social status and class to determine his individuality. He is ashamed of his personal appearance and looks towards social advancement as a way to assure himself and those around him of his value and establish who he is. Through out the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", T.S. Eliot explores Prufrock's conflict with society, love and self.…

    • 1260 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alfred Prufrock Suffering

    • 1552 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Is love worth the heartbreak? This is a question that every person has asked at least once in their life. If you could go back and forget every moment you had with someone so that you wouldn’t feel the pain of losing them, would you? The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot explores this question through Prufrock who is on a journey through life and whose anxieties separate him from the rest of society. Prufrock’s fear of judgment debilitates him, rendering him unable to create human connections. He is in complete denial of his incompetency and by not facing his fears, he robs himself of the life he desperately wants leading to a heart full of regret.…

    • 1552 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As people reach the middle of their lives, their age comes many things: wisdom, experience, a different point of view compared to when they were younger. But what about a middle age crisis? In T.S Elliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Elliot exemplifies the contrast between ages as he writes about the circumstances of the narrator, Prufrock.…

    • 1234 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    T S Eliot

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Adoption of Modernism in T S Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”…

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Prufrock Imagination

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages

    of his divided and solitary self. He is a lover, yet he is unable to declare…

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Psychoanalytic criticism originated in the work of Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who pioneered the technique of psychoanalysis. Freud developed a language that described, a model that explained, and a theory that encompassed human psychology. His theories are directly and indirectly concerned with the nature of the unconscious mind.( http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/critical_define/crit_psycho.html)…

    • 1551 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays