T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a poem reflective of the generation’s anxiety and indecisiveness. The speaker’s anxieties and the poem’s attachment to modernity is present throughout the text. The speaker and his reaction to modern life represent what Eliot observed in his society– an “etherised” generation incapable of finding meaning in an increasingly dissonant world.
The first introduction to immobility is in the third line when the speaker compares the sunset to “a patient etherised upon a table.” The introduction of an anesthetic not only links the characters to an element of scientific modernity, but it also characterizes the immobility of the speaker’s later inaction. Other descriptions of an industrialized society appear with descriptions of “the yellow fog” and “the yellow smoke,” which is reminiscent of pollution and smoke from houses’ chimneys. Inaction reappears also with the smoke’s movement through the city: “Curled once about the house, and fell asleep” (22). The smoke could symbolize the omnipresence of industry within Western society; its catlike action renders it harmless and apathetic to that society.
Another aspect of the poem that points to a general anxiety and indecisiveness is the repetition of “there will be time.” This phrase is repeated often, as if the speaker is trying to convince himself and justify his inaction. The fourth stanza is composed of lines cataloguing what there will be time for; a variety of actions are included like “To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet” and “to murder and create” (27-28). The speaker addresses his anxieties directly when he says, “Time for you and time for me, / And time yet for a hundred indecisions, / And for a hundred visions and revisions” (31-33). The speaker acknowledges his inability to choose on an action and is avoiding taking any action by discussing his lack of decisiveness. His repetitive syntax is similar to an nervous person’s affinity for circumlocution.
The most weighty line appears when the speaker asks, “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?” (45-46). This question seems to define a generation’s actions of inquiry, of seeking for a purpose, a way to connect with the world. A person who would ask if he could “dare” make ripples within the world is unsure of his place in it, of his ability to exert authority over his own life. To question if he dares to act because of the following consequences reveals a high anxiety unlike those of past writers. This anxiety shows an awareness of the world’s interconnectedness that did not exist before industry and technological revolution.
The speaker continues to doubt himself and compares his existence in a room full of people to that of an insect “sprawling on a pin” and “pinned and wriggling on the wall” (57-58). This comparison reveals not only anxiousness, but feelings of inadequacy, powerlessness, and defeat. He continues these feelings through a comparison of himself to a bottom-feeder in the ocean: “I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas” (73-74). Here, the speaker is stating that he should have been a crustacean rather than a human man because he is not worthy of the species. This speaker also directly admits his fears and anxieties directly; there is no doubt about his attitude toward his own existence. The speaker admits he is no leading character like Hamlet, and is instead a filler character in his own life, meant only to support other characters of his life (111-119).
Thus, Eliot’s poem is not a traditional love song as the title would present. It is instead a confession, a monologue of a man who is beset with his own feelings of inadequacy in an age of industry and modernity. He is a representation of the common man as victim to obsessive self-reflection, psychoanalysis, and identity crises. The character desires for meaning, for intimacy, and is unable to proceed, thus mirroring Eliot’s perspectives on his society.
Link to Illustrated Text of the Poem:
http://alannawynn.blogspot.com/2013/02/an-illustrated-version-of-love-song-of.html
Questions:
What was Eliot’s purpose for titling this poem a “love song”? What is achieved by this? Eliot has a variety of allusions within this poem as well like to the Bible. I’m not sure what these allusions are meant to compare or extend to– do these allusions somehow work to expand the ideas of fate and destiny? Of will power?
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