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An Explication Of “The Love Song
Of J. Alfred Prufrock” Essay, Research Paper
Explication of
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
By: Brian Locey
– California State University Fresno
Grade Received:
A-
In his poem “The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot explores the timeless
issues of love and self-awareness – popular themes in literature.
However, through his use of Prufrock’s profound self-consciousness
he skews the reader’s expectations of a “Love Song” and takes a
serious perspective on the subject of love, which many authors do,
but few can create characters as deep and multi-layered as Prufrock;
probably the reason that this poem still remains, arguably, Eliot’s
most famous.
The beginning of
the poem is pre-empted by an excerpt from Dante’s Inferno which
Eliot uses to create the poem’s serious tone, but also to begin his
exploration of Prufrock’s self-consciousness. By inserting this
quote, a parallel is created between Prufrock and the speaker, Guido
da Montefeltro, who is very aware of his position in “hell” and
his personal situation concerning the fate of his life. Prufrock
feels much the same way, but his hell and the fate of his life are
more in his own mind and have less to do with the people around him.
The issue of his fate leads Prufrock to an “overwhelming
question…”(10) which is never identified, asked, or answered in
the poem. This “question” is associated somehow to his psyche,
but both its ambiguity to the reader and Prufrock’s denial to even
ask “What is it?”(11) gives some insight into his state of
internal turmoil and inability to reason.
Prufrock’s
dissatisfaction in his personal appearance is one, but not the most
important of his idiosyncrasies. Not only is he unhappy with the
nature of his appearance, having “To Prepare a face to meet the
faces that you meet;” but he is fearful of what others will have to
say about him: “(They will say: ?How his hair is growing
thin!’)”(41) and “(… ?But how his arms and legs are
thin!’)”(44). Prufrock is insecure and frightened of peoples’
reactions to his balding head and slim, aging body.
Unfortunately,
his lack of confidence isn’t limited to his looks. Prufrock has
difficulty communicating with people – not surprising considering
his extreme lack of confidence in his appearance. He’s indecisive
and unsuccessful in his attempts to communicate with other people,
repeating “visions and revisions”(33) and “decisions and
revisions…”(48). Eliot uses repetition here to emphasize the
concept of Prufrock’s alterations in behavior – whether he does
change his behavior or not is another issue… most likely he doesn’t
because he also repeats the question “?Do I dare?’ and, ?Do I
dare?’”(38). Possibly, he’s asking if he should dare “and
drop a question on your plate;”(30) meaning one of his “dares”
could be something that he’d like to ask a woman but can’t; he
also asks “Do I dare/ Disturb the universe?”(45-46). In this case
Eliot uses hyperbole to give the reader the impression of the
seriousness of Prufrock’s insecurities – they are his whole
“universe.” However, this is only one explanation where there are
a number of possibilities. Once again, Eliot uses the device of
ambiguity to reflect the internal struggle in Prufrock and lead the
reader to ask themselves again “What is the ?overwhelming question’
that Prufrock is asking?” Unfortunately even Prufrock himself
doesn’t have the answer… even recognizing the issue itself is
beyond the simplicity of his mind, which he confesses by saying “I
am no prophet- and here’s no great matter;”(84). By downplaying
the importance of the issue, Prufrock echoes his lack of self-worth.
In fact, to Prufrock, the issue is extremely important – the fate
of his life depends on it.
His declaration
that he isn’t a prophet indicates Prufrock’s view on his position
in society, which he is as confused about as everything else. To
interject a little history: Eliot wrote this poem during a time in
which social customs, especially in Europe, were still a very
important issue. There were basically two classes – rich and poor,
neither of which Prufrock really fits into. Eliot creates the idea of
Prufrock being caught between the two classes in the very beginning
of the poem, (if not by J. Alfred Prufrock’s unusual
pompous/working class sounding name) when he juxtaposes the images of
“restless nights in one-night cheap hotels/ And sawdust restaurants
with oyster-shells”(4-5) and the women who “come and go Talking
of Michelangelo.”(13-14). These two images represent two completely
different ways of life. The first image is of a dingy lifestyle –
living among the “half-deserted streets”(4) while the second is
the lifestyle that Prufrock longs to be associated with – much like
the image of Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine
chapel where God and Adam’s hands are nearly touching, but not
quite. While Prufrock doesn’t belong to either of these two classes
completely, he does have characteristics of both. He claims to be
“Full of high sentence; but a bit obtuse” while “At times,
indeed, almost ridiculous-”(117-118). Being the outsider that he
is, Prufrock will not be accepted by either class; even though he can
clearly make the distinction between the two and recognize their
members: “I know the voices dying with a dying fall/ Beneath the
music from a farther room.”(52-53). This Shakespearean allusion
(Twelfth Night (1.1.4) – “If music be the food of love, play on…
That strain again! It had a dying fall.”) suggests that Prufrock is
just out of reach of the group of people that he wishes to be
associated with in life and love, but most likely his feelings of
insignificance prevent him from associating with anyone at all.
He sees himself
as a unique “specimen” of nature, in a class all by himself –
“And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin/ When I am pinned and
wriggling on the wall,”(57-58). This image suggests that not only
is he an object for speculation, but he is trapped in that role; a
situation which he is obviously unhappy with but has no idea how to
change; he asks himself, “Then how should I begin”(59). At this
point in the poem, Prufrock is beginning to feel especially detached
from society and burdened by his awareness of it. He thinks “I
should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors
of silent seas.” Eliot not only uses imagery here to create a
picture of a headless crab scuttling around at the bottom of the
ocean, but he uses the form of the poem itself to help emphasize his
point here. The head is detached from the crab, and the lines are
detached from the poem in their own stanza, much like Prufrock wishes
his self-consciousness would just “detach” itself. This concept
is echoed in the very next stanza when he says, “Though I have seen
my head (grown slightly bald) brought in/ upon a platter,”(83), an
allusion to the beheading of John the Baptist by Princess Salome.
These two headless images represent Prufrock’s desire to be rid of
his self-consciousness (obviously in his head) and possibly some
suicidal tendencies which can be tied into just about all of the
ambiguous questions Prufrock asks of himself throughout the poem.
Prufrock’s
series of questions can also be tied into his unsuccessful attempts
at relationships with women. His insecurities keep him from doing the
things he wants to do; he feels inadequate and unable to express his
true feelings to women, “Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,/
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?”(79-80). He
knows what he wants to say, but doesn’t have the confidence or
mental capacity to put his feelings into words. He compares himself
to Hamlet, “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;”(111),
who, in contrast, was able to express his feelings very successfully
to his lover – an ability which Prufrock is envious of,
characterized by his emphatic “No!” He is also second-guessing
himself constantly throughout the poem: “Do I dare?”(38), “So
how should I presume?”(54) and “Then how should I begin”(59)
are all questions Prufrock repeats to himself during his monologue.
His feelings of inadequacy toward women are not only related to his
appearance and lack of mental strength, but to the passage of time
and its effect on him.
Throughout the
poem, Prufrock struggles with the concept of time. He tries to keep
reassuring himself that “indeed there will be time”(23), an
allusion to a love story (Andrew Marvell – To His Coy Mistress –
“Had we but world enough and time.”) which suggests that Prufrock
fears that he will in fact not have time for love before the prime of
his life is over. His obsession with the passage of time is
characterized by its repetition throughout the poem, especially the
beginning of the poem. Eliot uses time as a tool to shape Prufrock’s
complicated, disturbed psyche into the form of a mid-life crisis.
Prufrock keeps assuring himself that, “indeed, there will be time”
to do all of the things he wants to do in his life, but first he must
come to terms with his insecurities. However, his insecurities are
related to his aging and the passage of time, so he is truly a
tragic, doomed character. This is not to say, however, that Prufrock
is unaware of the connection between time, his aging, and his
unsuccessful attempt at a social life… on the contrary, he claims
that he’s “measured out his life with coffee spoons,”(51) a
true testament to the self-proclaimed insignificance of his life.
Prufrock claims that “I have known them all already, known them
all-”(49) referring to the “evenings, mornings, and
afternoons”(50) of his life which he has seen pass by,
insignificantly. He also says “And I have known the eyes already,
known them all-”(55) and “I have known the arms already, known
them all-”(61) which illustrate both his failure with and fear of
women. Ironically, Prufrock dreams of saying: “I am Lazarus, come
from the dead,/ Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you
all”(94-95), a biblical allusion to Lazarus, an elderly man brought
back to life by Jesus – unfortunately for Prufrock, even if his
dream came true, he still wouldn’t know what to tell them all, or
how. Prufrock echoes the old cliche “Ah… to be young again; and
know then what I know now.” Unfortunately for Prufrock, it will
take a miracle to make him either younger or give him the knowledge
he seeks. Eliot doesn’t give any sense of hope for him in the poem
– he remains a doomed character until the very end. Prufrock even
admits that he has “seen the moment of my greatness flicker,”(84)
– a victim of time and natural selection.
Prufrock’s
connection to nature and the cycle of life is also an important
factor in understanding his state of mind. In the third stanza, Eliot
creates an image of yellow fog, connecting Prufrock’s consciousness
and emotions to nature in a lazy, animal-like way. This connection
echoes not only the insignificance of Prufrock’s emotional state in
a “natural world” context, but the futility of Prufrock’s
efforts should he try to contend with Mother Nature and change his
behavior – relating to Prufrock’s feeling of entrapment and
inability to change his situation. He wishes to himself, instead,
that he could be a mindless crab, scurrying around the bottom of the
ocean; another example of Prufrock’s impression of his position in
the natural world – rarely comparing himself to real people. In
fact, in his dream sequence at the end when he imagines how his life
might end up, he envisions himself as an ocean creature, surrounded
by mermaids “Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” Once
again, Eliot disconnects Prufrock from the real world.
Even though
Prufrock’s fantasies to be a crab, swim with the mermaids, be young
again like Lazarus, talk to women about Michelangelo with the poise
and eloquence of Hamlet, slink around the city like a lazy yellow
fog, and have his head chopped off like John the Baptist give him a
detachment from his day-to-day worries about love and aging, he will
never stop torturing himself trying to figure out that “overwhelming
question.” The only hope that Eliot gives the reader out of this
poem is the hope that we don’t end up like Prufrock.
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