Theme Of Escape In The Lovesong Of J Alfred Prufrock

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

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

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