![]() In his own poem, Prufrock is a weak and spineless man who is too afraid of any notion of accepting responsibility or venturing out of his comfort zone, too afraid that he will instead insult and then be insulted in retaliation.Īgain, Prufrock further signals his alienation and insecurities with those around him with the line “to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet,” which implies that he is afraid of showing his true self to people that he does not hold close to him, writing them all off as simply faces one meets (line 27). Prufrock can be related to many males reading this poem, so Eliot uses him as an example of what a man should not be. His necktie is simultaneously “rich and modest” and this juxtaposition compliments Prufrock’s scatterbrained and unfocused state of being he cannot make up his own mind as to whether he is well off or just standard. Prufrock hypothesizes that people will say that, showing his low self-esteem and image. It is important to note that no one in the poem actually says to his face that his limbs are thin and weak. Prufrock’s fickleness regarding his being makes him appear more as a feline than a man, obsessively grooming. Balding in men is caused due to the male hormone dihydrotestosterone and while it is tough to say that this knowledge was common sense in Eliot’s time, it is still interesting to note with a contemporary perspective that Prufrock is, in a way, afraid of his own masculinity through his balding. On multiple occasions, he draws attention to his bald spot. Prufrock is a self-deprecator, a man afraid and unaccepting of his own masculinity. Thus through the vicarious exploration of Prufrock, Eliot establishes a symbiotic relationship between the development of society and an evoked sense of inadequacy fostering a paralyzing effect on the human condition. Prufrock is hence represented as an individual wracked with languor, unable to form meaningful connections hindered by his fear of inadequacy and the sterility of modern society. ![]() His unsettled mood and despair is further captured through visual imagery and repetition in, “the yellow fog that rubs its back against window panes/the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes”. ![]() By employing such a method, Eliot introduces the inadequacy of his character, cutting short Prufrock's diatribe about the vulgarity of his existence and using a simple rhyming couplet in order to smear his character with an image of pure despair. The flowing pace of the poem becomes sharply lessened as lines follow the end of the first verse ‘In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo’. With a bald spot in the middle of my hair – My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin –. This comes from the imagery of Prufrock himself. Prufock’s self-image is also crucial for understanding what the poem offers to say about the emasculation and growing pessimism that plagues men as Eliot saw. The thought of him wanting to be a crab may be random, but the image of a crab is significant, even if for the wrong reasons. Prufrock is afraid to reveal anything that could be taken as not as grand as he wants to be, so he keeps it inside of his shell. This stream of consciousness, while revealing of who Prufrock is on the inside to a degree, does nothing with its promise of some sort of life-altering overarching theme or question. Prufrock wants to keep to himself and shed off any serious concerns with his defense of a wandering and unfocused mind. ![]() Ragged claws suggest a crustacean creature, which is significant for Prufrock’s character as these creatures are built around self-defense and keeping their sensitive being hidden away through a hard exterior. ![]() The reason for his diversion is to deflect focus from his serious thoughts into empty wonders. One of the most left field and significant of these is when he remarks he “should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” This line has no real meaning and does not connect to anything going on in the rest of it. He instead diverts attention to images or ideas that are ultimately meaningless to the grand scheme promised in the poem. Alfred Prufrock, struggles to tell the reader his overwhelming question. Over the course of the poem, the narrator, J. Rather than build meaning, as typical with imagery, Eliot sets out to utilize imagery to take real meaning away. Alfred Prufrock”, in a strange and unconventional way. Eliot uses imagery in his modernist poem, “The Love Song of J. Get original essay Imagery in “The Love Song of J. ![]()
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