Explication of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
In T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the author is establishing the trouble the narrator is having dealing with middle age. Prufrock(the narrator) believes that age is a burden and is deeply troubled by it.. His love of some women cannot be because he feels the prime of his life is over. His preoccupation with the passing of time characterizes the fear of aging he has. The poem deals with the aging and fears associated with it of the narrator. The themes of insecurity and time are concentrated on. This insecurity is definitely a hindrance for him. It holds him back from doing the things he wishes to do. This is the sort of characteristic that makes Alfred into a tragic, doomed character. He will not find happiness until he finds self-assurance within himself. The repetition of words like vision and revision, show his feelings of inadequacy in communicating with the people around him.
The rhyme scheme Elliot uses in this poem depicts the disenchanted and confused mind of the narrator. The poem is written using a non-uniform meter and rhyme. Various stanzas are not of uniform length. This method is probably used to represent the mood and feelings in the verse. Prufrock is feeling confused and overwhelmed by the adversities of life so his thought probably has the same types of characteristics. His thoughts lead to ambiguity such as at the start of the poem. "There you go then, you and I"(...
Young, W. B., Minnick, A. F., & Marcantonio, R. (1996). How wide is the gap in defining quality care?: Comparison of patient and nurse perceptions of important aspects of patient care. The Journal of Nursing Administration, 26(5), 15-20.
The poem's setting is one that conjures up images of vagueness. It is filled with "yellow fog" and "yellow smoke", both of which suggest a certain denseness and haziness. Similarly, Prufrock is faced with another kind of mist - "perfume from a dress (65) that sends him back into his spiral of insecurity.
Gender roles in society today, there is pressure to become a certain ideal of beauty; many types of images, film, and media forms tell the audience who to and what to look like. Suggestions of gender roles are conspicuous in the film Beauty and the Beast. For example, Belle is a beautiful girl who is skinny, loves to read novels, and not interested the famous Gaston. Belle is often satirized by Gaston for being out of her gender role, because she likes to read and she wants to leave out of her provincial town and seek adventure instead of becoming Gaston 's housewife. Gender roles are portrayed through Gaston, he often tells Belle to stop reading and pay more attention to marriage and her duties as a "housewife," therefore Gaston is the character that suggests gender roles to Belle. Beauty and the Beast sends the stereotype, if a young woman (Belle) is pretty and sweet-natured, she can change an abusive man (Beast) into a kind and gentle
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.
Eliot effectively evaluates the nature of human psychology and perception through tracing the narrative of developing individual identity in relation to community norms. The acceptance of aging, or of failing, present in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" tells the story of the speaker's struggle to derive life’s meaning through recounting events of life's pervasive realities in an effort to stage the traditionally modernist conflict of an individual’s identity in relation to their relationship to community.
Prufrock invites us, the reader, through his journey of self-evaluation and self-examination, as he say’s “LET us go then, you and I.” He uses personification in lines 5, “the muttering retreats” to describe his surroundings as if it were alive. The "retreats" are not "muttering," but it seems that way because they are the kinds of places where you would run into muttering people. Also, the restless nights mentioned in lines 4 and 6, “let us go, through certain half-deserted streets/Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels”
T.S. Eliot, a notable twentieth century poet, wrote often about the modern man and his incapacity to make decisive movements. In his work entitled, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'; he continues this theme allowing the reader to view the world as he sees it, a world of isolation and fear strangling the will of the modern man. The poem opens with a quoted passage from Dante's Inferno, an allusion to Dante's character who speaks from Hell only because he believes that the listener can not return to earth and thereby is impotent to act on the knowledge of his conversation. In his work, Eliot uses this quotation to foreshadow the idea that his character, Prufrock, is also trapped in a world he can not escape, the world where his own thoughts and feelings incapacitate and isolate him.
Social factors have always encouraged the idea that men embody masculinity and women embody femininity and, thus, certain gender-norms are expected accordingly. In the past, such expectations were traditional and to go against them was frowned upon by the general public. Contemporarily speaking, there is more freedom to avail oneself of today than there was once upon a time. Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s fairytale adaptation of ‘Beauty and The Beast’ was published in 1740. During this time, men and women were compelled by the social conventions associated with their gender. When analyzing the literary work, the reader can grasp what gender roles are eminent in the characters identity and motives. By exploring the choice of language being
The ironic character of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," an early poem by T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) in the form of a dramatic monologue, is introduced in its title. Eliot is talking, through his speaker, about the absence of love, and the poem, so far from being a "song," is a meditation on the failure of romance. The opening image of evening (traditionally the time of love making) is disquieting, rather than consoling or seductive, and the evening "becomes a patient" (Spender 160): "When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table" (2-3). According to Berryman, with this line begins modern poetry (197). The urban location of the poem is confrontational instead of being alluring. Eliot, as a Modernist, sets his poem in a decayed cityscape, " a drab neighborhood of cheap hotels and restaurants, where Prufrock lives in solitary gloom" (Harlan 265).
in, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T. S Eliot uses the advancements of modern life to blame the decline of society onto. Eliot fears the change and shift in life that they might bring, while also resenting the past that such advancements will eventually leave behind. As well, he tries to portray the passing of time and the deterioration of the human body and mind, trying to find some meaning, or at least help others find meaning in the great chaos that each person
"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 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
By classifying “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” as a symbolic exploration of the id, ego, and super ego of Prufrock, a deep and complex character is revealed. With constant tension the id seems to drive Prufrock forward towards engaging in conversation with a woman, while the ego attempts to satiate these desires and remain in a limbo without making decisions about anything important. The super-ego moderates this hostility and ensures that Prufrock remains in his indecision. T.S. Eliot’s pessimistic poem serves as encouragement to take advantage of opportunity and find the question.
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” presents a gloomy, lonely, depressed, and overall pessimistic mood and outlook on life. The poem has a clear theme, that decisions and risks are necessary in order to live life to the utmost potential. To live like J. Alfred Prufrock is more terrible than not living at all.
Some examples of the supportive communication includes smiling, leaning towards the patient (proxemics), making eye contact, and using a warmer tone of voice when speaking. The unsupportive nonverbal communication included no eye contact, minimal facial expression, and a cold tone of voice. This shows that nonverbal communication is not only a very important aspect of communication in general, but contributes to the overall well being, or discomfort of others as