SOURCE: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” in A Reader's Guide to T.S. Eliot: A Poem-By-Poem Analysis, Thames and Hudson, 1955, pp. 57-70.

[In the following essay, Williamson provides a close analysis of “Prufrock.”]

The mixture of levity and seriousness immediately confronts the reader in the title poem of Prufrock and OtherObservations. For he transposes his epigraph from the serious context of Dante's Inferno to the lighter context of Prufrock's love song. The epigraph is never to be ignored in Eliot for while it is not an essential part of the poem, it conveys hints of the significance or even genesis of the poem. Together with the title, it prepares the reader for the experience of the poem. Thus the first rule in reading one of Eliot's poems is to consider the possibilities suggested by the title and epigraph.

In this poem (1915) we have the love song of a certain character, whose very name is suggestive of qualities he subsequently manifests.¹ Then the epigraph states the situation of another character, who was called upon to reveal himself. How is it related to the title? Are the two characters alike or merely in similar situations? In view of the disparity which we have already noted, let us proceed on the assumption that likeness in situation is more likely to explain the presence of the epigraph. What, then, is the situation? In the Inferno (xxvii, 61-66) the flame of Guido is asked to identify himself—“so may thy name on earth maintain its front”—and he replies, in the words of the epigraph: “If I thought my answer were to one who ever could return to the world, this flame should shake no more; but since none ever did return alive from this depth, if what I hear be true, without fear of infamy I answer thee.” Obviously, if this relates to Prufrock, it must be an extended metaphor which will gradually unfold itself.²

The first line of the poem introduces a “you and I” at a point in a debate at which the subjective “I” is surrendering to the more objective “you” and agreeing to go somewhere. Who are the “you and I” and where are they going? The “I” is the speaker, but who is the “you” addressed? The title would suggest a lady, but the epigraph suggests a scene out of the world, on a submerged level. Is the “I” giving in to a lady? Going to a more acceptable rendezvous? Or is he submitting for the moment to an urgent “you,” with whom he is not in harmony?

It is evening, tea-time as we shall see. But the evening has an unusual character; as something seen through the eyes of the speaker, it derives its character from the speaker. This speaker is, we know, submissive—if we cannot say reluctant. Now he sees the evening in the aspect of etherization, and the metaphor of etherization suggests the desire for inactivity to the point of enforced release from pain. All of this simply projects the mind of the speaker—a mind, it would appear, that is in conflict, but presumably concerned with love.

After we learn the time of the going, colored by the speaker's mind, we learn the way of the going; and, considering the suggested character, it is a surprising way, through a cheap section of town. But it further characterizes the argument, tedious but insidious because leading to an “overwhelming question.” The streets suggest the character of the question at their end as well as the nature of the urge which takes this route. The abrupt break after the mention of the question suggests an emotional block, which is emphasized by the refusal to identify the question. The urge seems to belong to the “you” and the block to the “I”. Yet we are given an object of going in “our visit,” though the real purpose has been evaded. This closes the first section and is followed by a stanzaic pause.

The most obvious question that “visit” provokes is “where” and this is answered by “in the room.” But it is more than answered; it is qualified, again by the speaker's mind: his destination is a room in which women talk of the sculptor of heroic figures—no doubt trivial talk, but none the less of Michelangelo. After this recall of his destination, he turns back to the immediate scene—immediate at least in his psychological drama, or interior monologue.

With the image of the fog as cat we have another reflection of his mental state: desire which ends in inertia. If the cat image suggests sex, it also suggests the greater desire of inactivity. The speaker sees the evening in aspects of somnolence, or of action lapsing into inaction, both artificial and natural—sleep and etherization. The fog's settling down prompts the reflection that “indeed there will be time” for its more suggestive activity, and for his own. It may be observed that Eliot also follows Ben Jonson's rule for disposition: that each part provide the “cue” to the following part. “Time” now associates the scene with his mental indecision, but time also offers him an escape. This escape is good, however, only until the crucial moment for the question arrives; and it will be observed how the tension mounts as the time shortens, reaching a climax when he must “begin.”

As he takes comfort in postponement, in the future, he amplifies the contemplated action in its “overwhelming” aspect with a violence of similitude that began with the metaphor of etherization. This also adds to the growing tension. And this violence of similitude is functional: it expresses emotions or states of mind; its exaggeration often explodes into gentle ridicule, provides the excess by which excessive feeling is perceived and measured. But there will be time for what? To prepare a face for the ordeal? Or rather “to meet the faces that you meet”? His self-conscious accommodation to the social scene suggests the same thing in others. This action is given an incongruous violence by the phrase “to murder and create”—relative to one face or being and another. The same kind of mock-heroic contrast appears in the un-Hesiodic “works and days of hands,” though it also magnifies the “question.” And there will be time for the two of them, you and me, at least before the event. This section ends by making precise the moment for the “overwhelming question,” which is tea-time.

And again the place is recalled. In the poem it becomes almost the haunting refrain that it is in the mind of the speaker.

Still finding comfort in time, the next section increases the tension by raising the question of daring—only to particularize his fear. The tensional image of climbing stairs, with implication of effort, only exposes his weakness in the self-conscious disabilities proper to unromantic middle-age. Again there is the mock-heroic touch in his “collar mounting firmly,” and the “assertion” of his simple pin. His fear has now mounted to the image of daring to “disturb the universe.” And so he clings the more desperately to the comfort of time: in the possibilities of a “minute” he finds the courage to mention “decisions” where before he could only utter “indecisions.”

In this projection of a psychological drama it will be noticed that Prufrock is coming ever nearer to “the room.” Now he recalls the times that he has known, the trivial and timid measuring out of his “life with coffee spoons.” At this point the imminence of his test is indicated by the emergence of the present tense: “I know the voices”; he is within sound, and presently within range of the other senses. He has known all this without doing what he now considers; so how should he presume to disturb the accepted order?

The images progress in intimacy as he approaches the climax: voices, eyes, arms. Now the eyes fix him, give him his place in the accepted order, with a formulated phrase. When he has been classified like an insect, how can he deny this classification and break with his past? How can he begin “to spit out all the butt-ends”—the violence of the metaphor has an appropriate indecorum for the social scene which intensifies the conflict within him.

As he itemizes the arms that he has known, he is distracted for a moment by an erotic symbol, the parenthetic observation “downed with light brown hair.” He seeks the cause of this digression in “perfume from a dress”; but is it a digression? And if so, for the “you” or the “I”? Knowing these arms, he asks, “should I then presume?” The climax comes with a question which is also an answer: “And how should I begin?”

And begin he does, but he never finishes his proposal. After the preamble following “Shall I say,” his psychological block sets in, and he concludes by observing the kind of creature he should have been—“a pair of ragged claws” in “silent seas,” not Prufrock in a drawing room. It is noteworthy that his beginning about “lonely men” recalls the streets which he took on his way to the room. And the sea imagery should be kept in mind at the end of the poem. Eliot has indicated the crisis by typographical breaks in the text, but the transition is as simple as from “how begin” to “shall I say.”

After this crisis the somnolent imagery is resumed and decreasing tension is at once marked. Of course the reversal is unfolded in terms of the tea party. Now the evening sleeps, or malingers, catlike, “here beside you and me”—both of whom, we must conclude, are Prufrock. For the lady is never “you” in the poem; she is “one.” The rhyme of “ices” with “crisis” mocks their chime by their antithesis, and is characteristic of the way in which Eliot makes his rhyme functional. Now a series of heroic parallels, first suggested in Michelangelo, is begun in a self-justification which thereby becomes mock-heroic. Though he has prepared for his trial of strength, he is no prophet like John the Baptist; certainly not the hero of Wilde's Salomé, for he is “grown slightly bald.” Though he has aspired to such a role, his self-consciousness makes him extremely sensitive to social discomfiture—reflected in the image of his head “brought in upon a platter,” another likeness to John. And so his great moment has passed, and the “eternal Footman” of social fate—as inexorable as John's death—has snickered as he held his coat, dismissing him with the shame of inferiority added to defeat. Timidity has conquered his amorous self—the suppressed “you.” In excusing himself he has seized on a parallel which both exposes and mocks his weakness.

Henceforth he looks back upon the event and rationalizes his failure: “would it have been worth it”? And always his fear of misunderstanding the lady and exposing himself to ridicule settles the question. To his frustrated self he explains that “among some talk of you and me” he might have revealed his buried life—here the Lazarus parallel expresses its momentous nature for him—only to expose himself to a rebuff. And the magic lantern image puts his great dread, public revelation of his sensitivity, into its most vivid form.

Then the poem turns again, this time to a note of decision, marking the resumption of his dominant role. He is not Prince Hamlet, though indecision might suggest it; rather the cautious attendant. Here even the sententious, choppy verse suggests the prudent character, as he takes refuge in self-mockery. The long, heavy sounds of weariness are heard in the line “I grow old … I grow old …” while he asserts the unromantic character to which he resigns himself, resolving, however, to be a little sportive in dress (by wearing his trousers cuffed). No more “overwhelming questions” for him; only whether to try to hide his baldness, or whether he dares to eat a peach. Perhaps all this will be his revolt against middle-aged decorum, but then the mermaids, like the lady, probably will not sing to him (as to Ulysses).

The imagery of the sea, begun with “oyster-shells,” again emerges at this point; it is the imagery of his suppressed self. And the verse takes on a lyric or singing character where it has been talking verse before. The lyric note comes with the erotic imagery of the mermaids, and the hair of the waves recalls the down on the lady's arms. This watery, floating imagery involves the relaxation of all effort, offers a submerged fulfilment. It is ended when “human voices wake us, and we drown”—with the intrusion of reality, which drowns the inner life, the “us” in Prufrock. If this is a sublimation of the amorous Prufrock, it is a release of the timid Prufrock from the polite world which overcomes him. But reality returns, and the divided self is submerged again, not resolved.

Now we can see how Eliot has transposed his epigraph to a modern psychological context. Prufrock answers his suppressed self because “none ever did return alive from this depth”; hence he can answer without fear of being exposed. The reasons for this suppression, however, involve other fears. The “you” is the amorous self, the sex instinct, direct and forthright; but now suppressed by the timid self, finding at best evasive expression; always opposed by fear of the carnal, which motivates the defensive analogies. It is to this buried self that Prufrock addresses himself and excuses himself. His love song is the song of a being divided between passion and timidity; it is never sung in the real world. For this poem develops a theme of frustration, of emotional conflict, dramatized by the “you and I.”

With respect to its poetic method, particularly its mode of connection, let us summarize a few of its characteristics. Evening likened to “a patient etherised upon a table” is not a logical inference, but an association or an intuition deriving from an emotional state; it tells us more about the perceiver than about the object of perception. The figure could be developed logically by observing the similar elements on each side, thus inferring the likeness from these sings. But the reference in Eliot's comparisons is less to the thing compared than to the mood, character, or situation with which it is associated.

On the other hand, “Let us go and make our visit” is followed by a logical inference—that of destination, for visits have destinations. But the inference is presented in the form of an image:

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And this image carries both the inference and a description—a description of place, by Eliot's favorite method of showing something happening there. But it also insinuates the mood of the speaker: at his destination they talk of Michelangelo; it is the first of his heroic juxtapositions.

Other things follow logically enough from this perceiver, his visit, and the room; but many connections in the poem are associative relations, not logical relations, and are established by the feeling, in which the association of images is an important factor. To put this method another way, it is psychological reference rather than grammatical. What is last in the mind (at least, previously) connects with what follows; in looking for the link we sometimes overlook the obvious. Violent breaks are violent only in the immediate context, not in the context of the poem, always the antecedent part. Incongruous elements are explained by the larger context of the poem. Never accept any explanation that conflicts with part of the context or with the whole poem. The explanation of violent or exaggerated phrasing must be sought in the character or feeling represented, not in the poet.

In general, metaphor and symbol replace direct statement in Eliot. In “Prufrock” we have what comes to be a familiar compound, observation, memory, and reflection, in which observation becomes symbol. The doctrine of the objective correlative means not only that the subjective is projected into the objective, or by means of it, but that it is expressed in other terms—metaphor; objects become symbols, and personal feeling is set apart from the poet. Connection through imagery is characteristic of Eliot, who is likely to exploit a kind of imagery, not to use it at random. A particular kind of imagery becomes the expression of a particular kind of feeling, not only in the same poem but in different poems. Recurrent imagery may not only reiterate a theme, but provide a base for variations, or development; its recurrence usually is accompanied by a deeper plumbing or a richer exploration of its significance. For some of these uses witness in “Prufrock” the sea imagery, hair imagery, sartorial imagery, that of polite versus crude society, that of bare sensitivity versus the protective shell, images of relaxation or concentration of effort or will, and finally the heroic parallels which both magnify and mock the overwhelming question.

Such a method of indirection is appropriate to a character who never really faces his inner conflict or his frustrated self, and hence is incapable of a direct expression of it, to say nothing of a solution. Here the most revealing lines in the poem are

Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?

But the observation “downed with light brown hair” is no digression from the arms or from Prufrock's problem. This is why the epigraph, with its conditioned response, provides an important clue to the intention of the poem; and the title shifts its context significantly. The title suggests the question for this song of indirection, made such by repression. The mock-heroic tone is not merely in the author's treatment or in his character's conception of the problem, but finally even in Prufrock's evasion of himself.

Such a use of imagery is more than usually dependent upon arrangement. But the order of parts will reveal an implicit method in an Eliot poem that is essential to its meaning. There is such a method in “Prufrock”; it is begun by “Let us go” and ended with “and we drown.” The going is developed and dramatized even by verb tenses, the time element. The “drown” submerges again what has emerged in the “going”—which is never directly said—and concludes the imagery of his submerged life. To this arrangement the author helps the reader in other ways. His punctuation, for example, is functional, not conventional. What does it tell you? Especially at critical points? Some of the answers have already been suggested. Verse, too, is a kind of punctuation, as Eliot has remarked, and he comes to rely upon it more and more in this capacity. Here the phrasal separation in the short lines may be studied, and the effective chimes of the mock-heroic rhyme.

All verse—even nonsense verse is not quite free—depends upon an order and organization capable of being followed and understood; requires an implicit, if not an explicit, logic—connections which can be discovered in the terms of the poem. If the words of a poem have syntax, they make sense, have a logic. Otherwise the poet has no control over his material except that exerted by metre. Only an ordered context can control the range of meaning set off by the single word; and relevance to this context must be the guide for any reader in determining the range of meaning or the logic involved. Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity is a misleading book in that it explores possible meanings without proper regard to their limitation by the context. As George Herbert said, “the words apart are not Scripture, but a Dictionary”—for every context employs exclusion in order to turn the dictionary into scripture.

Notes

1. If Eliot's proper names do not acquire meaning from history or literature or etymology, they are used for their generic or social suggestion.

2. My exposition is indebted to the analysis by Roberta Morgan and Albert Wohlstetter in The Harvard Advocate for December 1938. But see The Criterion “Commentary” for April 1933 on Laforgue's use of irony to express a division or doubling of the personality.