The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Group

Question:

malc66
malc66
Student
College - Junior

What torments Prufrock?

 

Would you please give me some examples to support ?

Thanks for your help.

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Posted by malc66 on Thursday June 11, 2009 at 6:13 AM and tagged with characters, prufrock, torment.

Answers:


  1. epollock Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    malc66,

    The speaker in this poem is Prufrock, who engages in an internal monologue that, when first published in 1915, gave voice to the pervasive disillusionment and spiritual estrangement of the modern individual.

    Prufrock wants to escape the solitary dreariness of his isolated existence, but is afraid to take action or ask for affection. He instead imagines a tea party that he and the reader will attend, a party where he will remain indecisive, lacking the creative energy of the men they speak of such as Michelangelo.

    He recalls how the hero Hamlet finally acted after deliberation and decisiveness, but he ultimately compares his own fear and inaction to that of the old fool, Polonius.

    A wonderful an internal monologue in which “I” (the timid self) addresses his own amorous self as “you.” (Not every “you” in this poem, however, refers to Prufrock’s amorous self. Sometimes “you” is equivalent to “one.”) Possibly, too, the “you” is the reader, or even other people who, like Prufrock, are afraid of action.

    Among the important points are these: The title proves to be ironic, for we scarcely get a love song: “J. Alfred Prufrock” is a name that, like the speaker, seems to be hiding something (“J.”) and also seems to be somewhat old-fashioned “Prufrock” suggests “prude” and “frock”); the initial description (especially the “patient etherised”) is really less a description of the evening than of Prufrock’s state of mind; mock heroic devices abound (people at a cocktail party talking of Michelangelo, Prufrock gaining strength from his collar and stickpin); the sensuous imagery of women’s arms leads to the men in shirt-sleeves and to Prufrock’s wish to be a pair of ragged claws.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/love-song

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    Posted by epollock on Thursday June 11, 2009 at 6:38 AM