THE LOVESONG OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK HOW TO

When on display, he is vulnerable to the criticism of his peers. He is much like a specimen being primed for dissection. The image of Prufrock “pinned and wriggling on the wall” creates an image of him being totally exposed and on display. To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,Īnd when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, He is paralyzed by the fear of social criticism:Īnd I have known the eyes already, known them all – Every utterance is thought out and analyzed in his mind a hundred times.

THE LOVESONG OF J ALFRED PRUFROCK HOW TO

He does not know how to act and does not know how to say what he wants to say. It is clear that the actions of everyday life bring great turmoil to Prufrock. The simple “taking of a toast and tea” requires “a hundred indecisions” and “a hundred visions and revisions.” He is so repressed that tea is a major trial. He must “prepare a face to meet the faces” that he meets, for he cannot simply be who he is. The stanza mentioned in the previous paragraph illustrates Prufrock’s constant internal turmoil. He can only speak to a great void, certain that he will not be heard. He has all the time he needs now, yet his true time has passed. The tragedy is now that Prufrock is finally speaking his mind, his words will nevertheless remain unheard. He thought that time would be limitless (“There will be time, there will be time”), and he found that it wasn’t. Prufrock’s time to act was limited, but he didn’t know it. To prepare a face for the faces that you meet Īnd time for all the works and days of hands…īefore the taking of a toast and tea. He seemed to feel that he had all of the time in the world to act on his feelings:įor the yellow smoke that slides along the street… He always meant to say what had been plaguing him. Yet it seems Prufrock had been planning to make his declaration. Had Prufrock sung the song he meant to sing, he would not be in hell. Essentially, Prufrock has proved himself to be a coward. His inability to speak his feelings and the fear of what implications that would hold have confined him to where he is. Fittingly, Prufrock’s world is cast in this yellow light because his world is a world of cowardice. Yellow is a color associated with cowardice. Images of yellow overwhelming the landscape abound: “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its back upon the window-panes”. He has been condemned to a kind of hell by his inaction. Only now, where nobody can hear him, can Prufrock finally declare what cannot be said. Eliot’s Prufrock faces the same situation he has a story to tell – a love song to sing – that he didn’t dare to declare among the living. Being translated, it says: “If I thought that I was speaking/ to someone who would go back to the world,/ this flame would shake no more./ But since nobody has ever/ gone back alive from this place, if what I hear is true,/ I answer you without fear of infamy.” The speaker, in this case, will only tell his story with the knowledge that living ears will never hear it. Alfred Prufrock” begins with an epigraph from Dante’s Inferno. Therefore, Prufrock’s loveless life, isolation, and low self-esteem can be connected to the following three symbols: mermaids, bald spot, and eternal Footman.

He also thinks that people in his neighborhood are judging and gossiping about him, which makes him distant from the outside. Prufrock shows that he really concerns about his physical deterioration although he is not afraid of death. Although Prufrock is growing old, he feels the need to attract women but scares of being rejected or having an unstable relationship as in the past. Alfred Prufrock,” Prufrock is a man who is emotionally in conflict with himself.

The lovesong of j alfred prufrock