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J Alfred Prufrock Analysis

In: English and Literature

Submitted By ThomasFriedman
Words 996
Pages 4
John Nicholson
Professor Ellenberg
English 1102
12 November, 2012
The Depressing Poem of J. Alfred Prufrock
Historically love songs were romantic songs written by young men to young women in order to court them. These love songs often contained an aura of sensuality and grace that emphasized passion, youthfulness, life and heroics. T.S. Elliot’s poem, ironically titled “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, simply does not follow this classic formula. J. Alfred Prufrock, the protagonist of the poem, is not the epitome of physical attractiveness, boldness and passion. Instead he is a man who wallows in his self-pity over his failure in life. T.S. Elliot uses symbols, allusions, imagery and repeated phrases to emphasize the loneliness, isolation and despair of J. Alfred Prufrock.
T.S. Elliot uses allusions to contrast the greatness and grandeur of some of the figures in classic literature with the lackluster J. Alfred Prufrock. In line one hundred and ten, T.S. Elliot contrasts Prince Hamlet, a passionate and powerful figure from Shakespearean literature to Prufrock. “I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be” (line 112). “I have heard mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. In the epic “The Odyssey” mermaids used their voices to lure sailors into the water and to their deaths. However, Prufrock thinks himself as so pathetic that mermaids would not think that it would not be worth the time and effort to drown him. A more drastic moment of self-pity is in lines ninety four through ninety five. “To say: I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”. Even if Jesus revived Prufrock from the dead, Prufrock thinks of himself as so lowly a creature that he does not think it would be worth it to make an appearance and tell everyone about being resurrected.
T.S. Elliot uses metaphors and

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