The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock Sparknotes

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. He draws the reader in with veiled allusions to the narrator’s perceived age in comparison to his actual age as he walks down the street and at a social event. The narrator’s inaction leads him to realizing that he is in his own personal Hell and concludes that he himself cannot do anything but resign himself to his fate of old age. It makes the reader, and the narrator in a sense, think about
The most everyday action, descending stairs, is analyzed by Prufrock under a magnifying glass with the fear that he will “Disturb the universe”(46). He continues to self-scrutinize himself with questions on how to position himself down the stairs, but falls back on the fact that he will probably reverse these decisions soon. Furthermore, his inaction is tied to his social view—“Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,/Have the strength to force the moment to crisis?”(79-80), referring to his inability to make any clear decision. However, the Prufrocks character is still able to make his problems natural, expected, and human. The narrator refers to his features: A balding head, plain clothing, and his unique point of view on the world. His constant paranoia that people might judge him based on his looks is grounded in reality—people do judge others by how they
The narrator’s inability to go forward and disposition to only go backwards (79-80) suggests a nearness to mortality, to death, and of his own metaphorical descent into Hell. The Dante epigraph, when translated, foreshadows what the entire poem will be about— the epigraph translates to “If I believed that my answer would be/ To someone who would ever return to earth/ This flame would move no more,/ But because no one from this gulf/ Has ever returned alive, if what I hear is true, I can reply with no fear of infamy.” The “gulf” refers to the plane of the living, while his reference that no one has ever returned alive alludes to the dead can give no answer. This directly correlates to Prufrock because he himself sees “the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker” (85). The Footman referred in that line is Death, which points back to both his mortality and the