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ANALYSIS OF THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK, T.S. ELIOT

The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock, is a poem written by T.S.Eliot in 1915.

The technique used is the dramatic monologue, so there is a character, a dramatic person, and his/her voice is separate from the poet's one. This technique operates like a magnifying glass giving a more objective vision of life, but to create it, the poet has to take an emotional distance using impersonality; Eliot thought that the best poetry is the one who escapes from emotions.

Reverting to the analysis, the title reminds to a common genre of traditional literature, love poetry, but differently from traditional love poems it is very long, and so it also reminds to narrative poetry.

The central character of the poem is a bald, insecure middle-aged man that is both the narrator and the speaker, and the main topics are his feelings of inadequacy and his fears connected to his love purposes: he is very insicure especially with women, and so he can not take decisions.

The beginning of the poem presents a quotation taken from the Dante's Divina Commedia, and in particular to the 27th chant of the Inferno. The reason why Eliot chose this quotation, mayb,e derives from the analogies between Prufrock and Count Guido da Montefeltro: they both are in hell (for Prufrock hell is a metaphor to describe the contemporary chaotic society) and they both hide a secret that they are not able to reveal: Count Guido fears infamy while Prufrock is afraid of the uncertainty of the situation he is living which makes him unable to risk, but also to Eliot personal idea of the modern society: it is a society that has lost all the values and so it is in contrast with Dante's age, when common values are very important. The characteristic of the modern society are quoted in line 6 and 7 when Eliot speaks about one-night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells.

In the first stanza the speaking voice invites the reader to walk with him (let us go)  into the streets on an evening, that is presented like a patient etherized upon a table. The metaphor clearly explains that every evening is lifeless.

From the first two lines the first theme emerge: the theme of the journey. It is a very common theme among the modernist writers, maybe because in an age in which there are not certainties or truths, the only thing that men can do is to try to research them.

The first stanza concludes with a reader's quetion about the places chosen for their visit, but the narrator prefers not to answer, and it seems as if he wants to reject reality.

After the first stanza, as the most of songs, there is a refrain which alludes to the vanity and the presumption of modern people to speak about high topics in a shallow way.  

In the second stanza the narrator presents the yellow fog making a comparison between him and the smoke/fog. The verb lingered refers to Prufrock situation: as the fog lingered upon the pools, Prufrock feels inferior and unable to act decisively.

There will be time, the speaking voice tells himself in the third stanza. It seems as if he tries to become sure that there will be time to act and take decision, there is no hurry, as the repetition of the sentence time for suggests, revealing again Prufrock's indecision and fragility. But the repetition of there will be time can also reminds to the second theme of the poem: the passing of time. Indeed in the fourth stanza the theme of passing of time is dealt with better, as lines 41 and 44 demonstrate: how his hair is growing thin; but how his arms and legs are thin, that are characteristics of an old man.

The following stanzas seem to present Prufrock's justification for his non-acting. Behind his presumption of having known everybody and everything, Prufrock wants to provide to himself an excuse for his no-acting, as all the questions at the end of various lines suggests (how should I presume?; how should I begin?). But in the 8th stanza there is a contraddiction: indeed after the justification for the narrator indecision and inhability to act, Prufrock meditates on what he could have been that appears as the exact opposite of what he really is, recognizing his guilt. The image of the ragged claws shows what Prufrock wants to be, but he can not.

In the 10th stanza the theme of the passing of time is presented again thorugh the list of the past opportunities that Prufrock had. As most of people, when they become old, started to reflect about life, Prufrock started to do it too, because he discovers death is closer. From the reflection the reader understands that the character is aware that he had chances, but he wasted them. The stanza and so the theme of passing of time culminates with the image of the eternal Footman that is the metaphor for death. Prufrock is too afraid about death that he can not mention it.

Absorbed by his thoughts, Prufrock begins to consider again his past, thinking of the consequences that his actions would have brought if he have had the strength and the bravery to acting and the repetition would it have been worth leads the reader's attention to Prufrock's persistent insecurity.

Prufrock's reflection about his past, developed through the all conclusive stanzas. In particular, it is interesting to notice that at lines 111-112, the character reveals his awareness of being pathetic and too much cautious, saying I am not Prince Hamlet, [...] am an attendant lord. From this expression the reader understands Prufrock was not the protagonist of his own life, but, on the other hand, he lived in a passive way. Prufrock sees he is getting older: this lets him realizes he have been lost in his mind for long time without connections to the real life. He has drowned in his own thoughts, he has lived in his dreams instead of in the reality and now, when he wake up from his drowsiness, he realizes it is too late for acting.

From the analisys, the reader understands Eliot's poem is a critic toward the inability of acting and of being unable to get over our fears and so another theme that comes to the surface reading the poem is pessimism and the theme of indecision.