Alienation In The Love Song Of Alfred j Prufrock

Alienation In The Love Song Of Alfred j Prufrock

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|The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is essentially concerned with the persona who can see the potential in life - the possible     |
|loves, joys, companionship and heroism - but is unable to act on his desires. The poem resonates on his inadequacy, the hesitancy |
|in which he poses scenarios and then rationalises inaction. On this level the poem is a very personal poem of a sad and tormented |
|man outlining his ‘love song’ to all to hear, wanting someone to see and understand his plight. On another level it is a critique |
|of modern society; a place where inane social rituals prevail; a place where individuals are repressed, alienated and no longer in|
|contact with a meaningful existence. Although ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ does not delve deeply into the alienation of a|
|whole civilisation, like Eliot’s later poems such as ‘The Wasteland’ and ‘The Hollow Men’ it does point obliquely to the           |
|meaningless world of ‘tea and cakes and ices’ and the pretentious and superficial chatter of ‘In the room the women come and go/   |
|thinking of Michelangelo’.                                                                                                         |
|If the title suggests a potential happiness and involvement in life it is immediately undercut by the epigraph from Dante’s       |
|Inferno. These lines relate to Guido’s willingness to tell of his life after death to Dante as nobody had been known to ever       |
|return to tell. The imagery of hell parallels Prufrock’s own inner hell of isolation and lovelessness. Just as Guido is imprisoned|
|in a flame, Prufrock’s inner self is imprisoned in a world where he cannot tell of his feelings and desires.                       |
|The sadness and tragedy of the poem is mainly due to the fact that Prufrock is conscious of his own inadequacy. He sees the       |
|inanity and superficiality of the social conventions that are valued by middle class society, yet he is too...