The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock By T S Eliot!

 

 

 

I had a hankering for reading a premise around love, so was decoyed into this by the title “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock“.

 

T S Eliot dodged me by offering a fallacious title! :-D

It doesn’t have to offer anything around love or romance. 😊

 

The prosaic name “J Alfred Prufrock”, suggested me some physics professor/scholar with an uninteresting name and a wearisome life, experiencing a lavish unusual love story/song!

 

But hold on, TS Eliot skilfully manoeuvred the readers into the intricacies and realities of life by offering a bewitching title! Neither is it a love story nor is the man a professor or a scholar. But yes, he is desolate, lonely, with truckload of complexes and bearing the tedium of the harsh raucous world! He just wants to break free from the humdrumness, but fails to do so! He isn’t articulate and resorts to self-mockery and lastly lamenting over his failed desires!

It is a feat packed with irony!

He appears to be a middle-aged desolate and decrepit man.

 

Atleast once in a lifetime, we all have felt like Prufrock, filled with doubts, fears, inhibitions, and he turns out to be emblematic of it all!

It is an evocative and surprising poem filled with obscurity and mystery! It is a narration of desire and failure.

 

The poem opens with an epigraph from Dante’s Inferno. This contrast between the serious heavier epigraph and the lighter poem, is a perfect fusion of levity and sombreness!

 

The gist of epigraph-

A man condemned to hell in a “prison of flame” for his treacherous advice on earth to Pope, recites the humiliation of his wicked life to Dante, believing that Dante will never return to earth to report what he has confided.

 

I presume, that the epigraph finds an apt place, as later in the poem we realise that Prufrock is in a similar sombre and insipid situation, in a society, that is hellish for him, and can’t find any way out of it.

This epigraph very subtly foreshadows about what is to be offered ahead!

 

The opening line of the poem-

“Let us go then, you and I,”

I, is Prufrock, while in the opening line the identity of “You” remains obscure! We may easily assume it to be a lady-lover or the reader? Let us explore more.

 

The opening para, sets an apt environment in which he is – walking through the sordid streets of a city.

We further learn that they are paying a visit to a woman talking about Michelangelo.

Prufrock takes some time off from the society, by getting into a somnolent/drowsy state, suggesting his mental state of indolence and inactivity. (mostly due to his spiritless and insipid life)

“And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?””

 

Above lines infuse tension, suggesting his fear of the society.

Moving ahead,

“And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,”

 

He looks back upon an event and reminisces the failure of the event.(We may conjecture it is as some failed love encounter)

 

“If one, settling a pillow by her head

               Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

               That is not it, at all.””

 

Above lines, very well impart a clue about the identities of “you and I”. We can easily conclude “you” to be the one who settles a pillow by “her” head and Prufrock is all susceptible to be misunderstood by her!

 

Till now, the meter and tone are filled with Prufrock’s self-mockery and self-condemnation.

But now finally, in the last part of the poem, the tone is filled with romantic longing. (Finally, 😊)

He finally wants to escape the reality of the world into world of mermaids.(Don’t we all dream of escaping the unpleasant? It reminded me of Valancy from “The Blue Castle”)

“I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.”

 

This poem can be easily classified as a dramatic monologue of Prufrock while utilising his stream of consciousness/state-of-being!

Prufrock is aware of his infirmity, and incapability-

“I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.”

 

He is aware of being inferior.

Aware of the fact that he isn’t Prince Hamlet,  the mermaids won’t sing back to him, and he is incapable of taking any firm decision, he finds refuge in self-mockery throughout the poem. (Atleast till the 75% mark)

He is also sensitive towards the criticism of the people-

(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

 

The major theme of the poem is enshrouded with the dryness, humdrumness and tedium of the routine modern life. A perfect metaphor to the futility of life.(Again reminds me of The Songs of Solomon). It also expounds on the lack of communication and articulation-

“It is impossible to say just what I mean!”

It isn’t imperative to know whether “you” is a female or someone else, it is more important to know that Prufrock’s communication with “you” has failed, big-time!

 

Isolation, loneliness and estrangement from the society takes precedence!

 

There is no structure to the poem and is free-flowing, inundated with self-mockery, lack of articulation, the failure of desires. It appeared more like a collage to me, with all the above departments/themes arranged in no particular order/fashion, leaving it to the readers to decipher accordingly(giving a free-hand).

The poem propounds the veritable bitter-truths of life!

A perfect 4-star, for this not-a-love-song!

It was a mockery on me, as I picked up assuming it to be a love-laden-jaunty-ride :-D