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Theme of loneliness in the novel
Theme of loneliness in the novel
TS Eliot and his contribution
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T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", revolves around the persona of a man named Prufrock. Prufrock, at first glance, has a cool composure. He leads his reader down an intricate evening path and begins stalling his apparent "overwhelming question" (16). As the poem progresses, however, Prufrock's facade fades away. Instead, he is immensley insecure with himself and lives a depressing lonely life. His relationship with women is apprehensive, and causes him to be withdrawn from society as a whole.
Prufrock almost angrily implies women's superficial nature by repeating the lines,
"In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo." (19-20) Given he is a reknown artist, it is easy to sound knowledgeable on the subject.
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He describes the feeling of being judged as being "pinned and wriggling on the wall" (64). Prufrock is uncomfortable under the eye of anyone, making it diffucult for him to pursue relationships.
Despite "grow[ing] old" (126), however, Prufrock is determined he still has time to face the music, time "for a hundred indecisions, / And for a hundred visions and revisions" (38-39).
Prufrock consistently avoids the direct subject of not being able to socially interact with a woman. He is a desolated soul and eventually expresses feelings of estrangement from society all together. So mentally collapsed, he even admits he “should have been a pair of ragged claws
/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas” (79-80).
Prufrock does not relate well to people, women especially. His constant self scrutiny and unhappiness with society makes him believe he is identified closer with mermaids than humans. He refers to the mythological creatures as "we", suggesting Prufrock's wishes to escape humanity and be alone somewhere desolated such as the sea. He ends the poem with the final thought that until he is dead, he will never fully be content with
He finds that he prefers the company of women because men make him feel uncomfortable. With women, he feels free to discuss anything or even sit in silence...
When our lives begin, we are innocent and life is beautiful, but as we grow older and time slowly and quickly passes we discover that not everything about life is quite so pleasing. Along with the joys and happiness we experience there is also pain, sadness and loneliness. Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" both tell us about older men who are experiencing these dreadful emotions.
Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as
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
Taruskin, R., & Taruskin, R. (2010). Music in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This line concludes the poem and emphasizes the melancholy tone evident throughout. Like the death of his lover, the last line emphasizes the finality of life and an end void of purpose.
Thus, the end of the poem states that monsters are made and bred in this world which provokes the safety of humanity but a detriment or human’s mere purpose on the planet.
“Its deserted streets are a potent symbol of man and nature 's indifference to the individual. The insistence of the narrator on his own self-identity is in part an act of defiance against a constructed, industrial world that has no place for him in its order” (Bolton). As the poem continues on, the narrator becomes aware of his own consciousness as he comes faces nature and society during his walk. He embraces nature with the rain, dark and moon but he also reinforces his alienation from society as he ignores the watchman and receives no hope of cries for him. The societal ignorance enforces our belief that he is lonely on this gloomy night. “When he passes a night watchman, another walker in the city with whom the speaker might presumably have some bond, he confesses, ‘I… dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.’ Likewise, when he hears a voice in the distance, he stops in his tracks--only to realize that the voice is not meant "to call me back or say goodbye" (Bolton). The two times he had a chance to interact with the community, either he showed no interest in speaking or the cry wasn’t meant for him. These two interactions emphasize his loneliness with the
the poet is trying to portray the fragility of a life, as it is created with the intent to be lost (death
The poem begins, "If we must die, let it not be like hogs/Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot. " It ends with the powerful lines, "Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack/Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting
...end, I should not be so desolate in this peopled earth. (Shelley 144). Even the smallest of children run from this lonely and abandoned human, who has no place to go and no one to love.
The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.
The human mind is a complex and mysterious thing. Many authors of the Modernist Period explored different possibilities when it comes to the meaning and understanding of language. Rather than creating writing to understand the human mind, many writers decided to follow the difficulty behind it. The outcome of this can be seen through T.S. Elliot’s work, which has been considered the most difficult, yet luminous of the time for many different reasons. The poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” shows the personal chaos of an unhappy narrator though narration that is similar to a person’s perception.
The final stanza of the poem concludes that God’s compassion for the human being, his creation, has the power to rid us of our suffering. God will not desert us, and will in fact “sit by us and moan” when we suffer.