The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Eliot Flashcards
He feels dirty and corrupted, unwanted and dehumanised.
“The yellow fog that runs its back upon the window-panes”
Poem begins with a vacuous, emotionless image. Prufrock creates an image of vulnerability - as if he is about to be dissected emotionally, which he goes on to do.
“Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table”
Prufrock has low self-confidence, he must assure himself he has time (despite his old age?) and he doesn’t even know what face to pull as he is so paranoid.
“There will be time, there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”
This quote shows the pretentiousness of the women, showing a lack of substance. They, unlike Prufrock, can successfully put on a front to come across as someone different.
“In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo.”
Prufrock feels like a vulnerable insect being looked at and dissected. He once again dehumanises himself, comparing himself to an insect.
“When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall”
Prufrock creates an awkward and ugly image and a partial one; he does not even feel like a whole crab, just it’s claws. Shows his continual lack of confidence, being harsh on himself, something which is emphasised by the hard sounding consonants of “ragged”.
“I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
Prufrock makes many literary references throughout, such as claiming he is not “Prince Hamlet” - a highly important character that everyone wants to play, rather he is an unimportant and transient character.
“No! I am not Prince Hamlet… [I] Am an attendant lord, one that will do / To swell a progress, start a scene or two”
“Almost, at times, the Fool.”
Even make-believe women in his imagination reject him! How humiliating! Perhaps he also feels like he is at the bottom of the sea; the lowest he could be.
“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. / I do not think that they will sing to me.”
