So here I am, trying to go back and catch up on the work
that I didn’t get done when I should have…so, here we go!
1.
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a poem
by TS Eliot; it begins with the narrator, J Alfred Prufrock, inviting the
reader to take a walk through a city. He describes the yellow fog that pervades
the city, and social gatherings, including some women discussing Michelangelo (he
refers to them a couple of times). Prufrock insists that there are many things
to be done, and frets about seemingly insignificant matters (his physical
appearance, clothing, eating a peach…). Prufrock also describes his aging body.
2.
The theme of the poem is inability to act or
paralysis (I’ve run across quite a few articles that compare this piece to
Hamlet…Prufrock also refers to the Prince of Denmark).
3.
Eliot’s tone is rather gloomy, and at times, the
narrator sounds regretful. Some examples of this pessimistic tone include:
·
“Let us go then, you and I, /When the evening is spread out
against the sky/Like a patient etherized upon a table;” (Drugged patients aren’t
a very cheerful way to describe something)
·
“I have measured out my life with coffee
spoons;/I know the voices dying with a dying fall/Beneath the music from a
farther room.”
·
“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea/By
sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown/Till human voices wake us, and we
drown.”
4.
Literary elements included in the poem:
·
Metaphor: “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon
the window-panes,/The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes/Licked
its tongue into the corners of the evening,/Lingered upon the pools that stand
in drains,/Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,/Slipped by
the terrace, made a sudden leap,/And seeing that it was a soft October night,/Curled
once about the house, and fell asleep.”
·
Simile: “When the evening is spread out against
the sky/Like a patient etherized upon a table”
·
Personification: “The muttering retreats/Of
restless nights in one-night cheap hotels”
·
Symbolism: “With a bald spot in the middle of my
hair—” (Used as a symbol of his age)
·
Personification: “And the afternoon, the
evening, sleeps so peacefully!/Smoothed by long fingers,/Asleep … tired … or it
malingers,/Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.”
·
Rhetorical Question: “Shall I part my hair
behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?”
·
Allusion: Prufrock alludes to Hamlet, as he also
suffers from the inability to act—“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to
be…”
·
Imagery: “I have seen [the mermaids] riding
seaward on the waves/Combing the white hair of the waves blown back/When the
wind blows the water white and black.”
·
Synecdoche: “I should have been a pair of ragged
claws/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” (Meaning he would have been better
off as a crab)
1.
Some examples of direct characterization include
the points where he describes his thinning hair and his coat pulled up to his
chin. Much of the poem is an indirect characterization, describing Prufrock’s
regrets, paralysis, etc. Eliot most likely uses both approaches because
Prufrock is narrating this himself, so he wouldn’t give too many direct
descriptions of himself, but when he does,
it is helpful and necessary to the symbolism. Eliot’s use of both
techniques is essential to Prufrock’s character, making him more realistic and
gives him depth.
2.
Eliot mainly focuses on Prufrock, and his
diction and syntax don’t really change as he focuses on other people.
3.
Prufrock doesn’t seem to change throughout the
poem, so I suppose he is static. He does mention aging, but character-wise, the
poem doesn’t seem to identify any changes…
4.
At first, I was prepared to say that I had
simply read a character and didn’t get to know Prufrock very well. However, as I
read the work over and over, and as I found others’ interpretations of Eliot’s
symbols and allusions, I felt much more like I knew Prufrock as a person.
