"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is at once a comic poem and a biting satire on the low aspects of urban life. Its speaker, a bald man conscious of his every gesture, represents a sexual and spiritual sterility that, in the end, the audience realizes is impossible to overcome. The poem does not proceed logically, but in a stream of consciousness, where ideas are only loosely connected and there seems to be no beginning or end. This lack of direction and lack of a coherent timeline continues until the line "I'll wear the bottoms of my pants rolled up," where the speaker's tone becomes more assertive but yet does not provide a sense of finality. Even metaphors in poetry compare vaguely related things and force images into each other to create an overall sense of disjunction and chaos. T. S. Eliot's judicious use of slant and internal rhyme further convinces the audience that the character of J. Alfred Prufrock, a character with only "a name and a voice" (Bergonzi 17), is immutably unattainable, despite his carefully cared for external appearance. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay From the beginning, the audience is reminded that there is no way out of the world they find themselves in in Prufrock's world, despite attempts to move beyond this social bubble. The epigraph is a quote from Dante's Inferno XXVII, the words spoken by Guido da Montefeltro: "If I thought that my answer was to whoever could return to the world, this flame would no longer tremble; but since no one has ever returned alive , I answer” (Bergonzi 15). The indelible first line then follows this ominous warning: “Let us go then, you and I” (Eliot 276). This powerful but cultured invitation reflects the passages in which Virgil gently exhorts Dante on his journey through Hell and Purgatory (Bergonzi 15). Emphasizing that the audience has now entered a point of no return, Eliot convinces us of the immutability of Prufrock's situation. The next two lines of the poem embody the style of figurative language employed in the poem, “When the evening stretches against the sky/ Like a patient etherized on a table” (Eliot 276 creates an aura of menacing brutality, confirmed in the next line by the paralyzing image of a corpse on a). dissecting table. The combination of “lyrism and brutality, of soft words and hard ideas” is exemplified in these lines and will become a dominant element in the rest of the poem (Raffel 26). In this same simile, Eliot employs the concept of "indeterminacy". This type of rhetoric appears vague because it assumes that readers will understand all the allusions and that they will be able to construct an entire idea with a few words or a sentence (Raffel 29). The simile in lines 2-3 makes a comparison between two largely independent figures, the sky and a patient. This loose connection ties into the intense banality of Prufrock's well-mannered existence. Prufrock doesn't really live his life actively; rather, he contemplates situations in which he might have acted or thought a certain way. His discursive narrative serves to highlight his inability for warmth and emotional attachment. The greatest indeterminacy in this poem lies in the underlying “‘overwhelming question,’ which is never expressly stated” (Raffel 31). It is safe to infer from the context that the "overwhelming question" that Prufrock cannot ask is, "What is the meaning of this life?" (Raffel 31) He realizes that life does not simply consist of toast, tea, and cuffed trousers; however, he will never be able to ask that question explicitly. Although the speaker never provides a definite outline of histhoughts, ideas are mostly confusing and upside down in relation to the context, readers are able to formulate this all-encompassing question without much effort.difficulty. Indeterminacy is a key element in understanding the purpose of Prufrock's thought and the meaning of his metaphors for the poem as a whole. Along with indeterminacy is the idea of ​​the parts representing a whole. Eliot never provides us with tangible visual images, but rather forces us into the most unlikely comparisons, for example likening the sky to a reclining patient, or associating "the yellow fog that rubs its back on the glass" with a cat (Eliot 276). Furthermore, he never presents the woman Prufrock dreams of meeting, "except in fragments and plural synecdoches of eyes, arms, skirts that we might well imagine as fetishistic substitutions" (Christ). The poet presents a somewhat matter-of-fact image of Prufrock himself, "My morning coat, my collar mounted securely to my chin, / My tie rich and modest, but affirmed by a simple pin," only to proceed to deconstruct it" with attentive eyes." of another in thin arms and legs, a bald head carried on a platter... The poem, in these various ways, decomposes the body, making its sexual identification ambiguous" (Christ). The following passage demonstrates Eliot's tendency to use the French style of using the definite article with body parts, removing the sense of any personal identity: And I have already known the eyes, I have known them all The eyes that stare at you in a formulated sentence, And when I am formulated, lying on one pin, When I am stuck and writhing on the wall, Then how should I begin to spit out all the residue of my days and ways? (Eliot 277) The fragmentation of the body also illustrates the horror of sex and its power to dissect. Eliot sees sex as "the tyranny of one part of the body over the whole" (North). Prufrock's sexual desires end up tearing his body apart. Eliot's mention of scattered members evokes a terrifying image of "sexual violence [which] deprives the individual of the integrity necessary for action" (North). However, an element of pity for Prufrock's sexual sterility also emerges. While he is capable of expressing desire, he is not sexual enough to do anything about it. He is able to contemplate and appreciate the sensuality of “bandaged, white, bare arms” and “skirts trailing on the floor,” but he will not be able to consummate his fantasies (Raffel 24). Eliot's language also concisely presents an element of shock. The seemingly lyrical lines, “There will be time, there will be time” lead to the haunting statement, “There will be time to kill and create.” (Eliot 276). This contrast is also present in the transition from the serious "a hundred indecisions...a hundred visions and revisions" to the mocking tone of "before having a toast and a tea" (Raffel 26). Prufrock's dreamy, exotic observation of the "siren song" is overshadowed by the desperation of his next statement: "I don't think they will sing to me" (Eliot 278). He is truly a hopeless romantic and this poem is passionately ironic. The title itself is a great example of this irony. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is constructed as one of Eliot's metaphors, the sweetness and delicacy of a love song dwarfed by Prufrock's bizarre and tense name. “In the poem's full title the conventional expectations of 'Love Song' are immediately and abruptly contrasted by the absurd proper noun that follows” (Bergonzi 14). Furthermore, the varied use of rhyme and meter serves to highlight the ironic aspects of the poem. poetry. For example, regular (but imperfect) iambic pentameter in lines. "In the room where women come and go/Talking about,., 1982. 24 31.