The title makes immediately the reader thinks the song deals with a dedication to a lover from J.Alfred Prufock. The title took the name from a Rudyard Kipling’s poem "The Love Song of Har Dyal,”. The name J. Alfred Prufrock seems to take origin by the Prufrock-Litton Company, which was a furniture store in St. Louis at the time T.S. Eliot lived there. In a 1950 letter, Eliot said, "I did not have, at the time of writing the poem, and have not yet recovered, any recollection of having acquired this name in any way, but I think that it must be assumed that I did, and that the memory has been obliterated.” The poet seems to suggest the name is casual, and the reader must not find a reason of this choice and the relation between signifier and signify should be “obliterated”, as a consequence the reader understand J. Alfred Prufrock is not a reference to a man but he is universal, he indicates all human beings.

At the start of the poem the reader recognizes the verses 61 to 66 of Inferno XXVII of A. Dante’s Divina Commedia. The epigraph is a piece of Guido da Montefeltro’s speech with A. Dante. Guido is telling Dante why he is in the VIII bolgia and he also says he will not feel shame because anyone has never come back from hell. In the new context, Guido/Alfred’s words seem to (un) reveal the common condition of all human beings but while no one is listening him.  The epigraph deals with a never told/experienced story and Eliot wanted to express his opinion about this condition of un-action. In addition hell can be interpreted as the condition of love: an agonizing situation from which Prufrock can go away.

In the poem Prufrock tries to reveal his love passion for a woman. The first position of “you” makes the reader understand Prufrock’s passion and in addition the final position of word “I” is functional to create a rhyme with the following verse.

The verb “to let” is repeated more times in the poem. It seems the speaker makes an invitation to himself and to everyone to act, indeed he says “Let us”; but it seems to be a contradiction: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a dramatic monologue; indeed the is a speaker who discusses a topic and he reveals his personal feelings to a listener, that is himself, so the drama is the impossibility to communicate/relate to others and the invitation of acting is useless.

T.S. Eliot choose the form of monologue to investigate human nature, which was the objective of all modernist writers. The monologue allows to writers to report directly the flux of thought, indeed in the song there are not references of a specific time or space and also in the verse 14 “In the room the women come and go” the reader does not understand who are and where they come and go.

The atmosphere of the poem is totally dramatic: “half-deserted streets…sawdust restaurants...cheap hotels...the yellow fog...the yellow smoke…”; in addition the topic of the un-told love and the human inaction. Indeed, Prufrock compares himself to Hamlet. The use of the protagonist of a Shakespeare’s tragedy makes the reader understand T.S. Eliot like Joyce investigates the human archetype, in this case “the Hamlet man” who is not able to act like Prufrock.

In the text the reader find more times the expression “there will be time”. These words seem to be a Prufrock’s attempt to convince himself he has time to reveal his love to his lover.

His un-action is comparable to the procrastination of all human beings. In addition the phrase makes the reader come to mind Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress, but differently from Prufrock the metaphysical poet says not to have enough time.  There is another reference to Marvell’s poem in: "To have squeezed the universe into a ball / To roll it toward some overwhelming question," (lines 92-93) "But at my back in a cold blast I hear / The rattle of the bones" (line 185). 

The quoted lines are impressed in Prufrock’s mind, as all his experiences and feelings which are chaotically expressed in his dramatic monologue. The reader understands Eliot’s ability to investigate human nature, especially human conscious and unconscious part of mind.