The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

1.  He is surrounded by people with no emotional depth, and is in love with a woman, but he is afraid to tell her.

2. Prufrock feels overwhelmed and confused.

3. He thinks he is a wimp and is self-conscious about his disappearing hairline. Prufrock thinks he is scrawny and has body image issues.

4. This poem shows Prufrock’s internal conflict with whether or not he should tell the woman he loves about his affection for her, as well as his struggle with his self-confidence. The climax of the poem occurs in line 111, where he compares himself to Polonius from Hamlet, who serves the king. This shows that Prufrock does not view himself as a worthy man, but a low and sad man. He decides to not to tell the woman that he loves her. The resolution is about him growing older, and talking about drowning in the waves. Throughout the poem, he expresses his insecurities. He knows if he goes to the parties, people will talk about his balding head and his thin arms. The women would ignore him, even if he held the secret about life after death. He even goes so far as to say he wants to be a sea creature, so he can be in the lonely, quiet, and peaceful sea.

5. The structure speeds up the rhythm of the poem, which indicates his anxiety.

6.

Lines 120-121: When people age, they get smaller and their clothes become too large. As he gets older, he’ll have to roll up the pant bottoms. This shows that Prufrock is again and will soon have to fix his clothing so it will fit.

Lines 122-123: He again talks about his bald spot, and how he may have to start parting his hair behind to cover it. The peach represents women and their “disgusting” arm hair, and how they are temptation. This again touches on his fear or almost hatred of women, as well as his insecurities about his appearance.

Lines 124-125: Mermaids often represent sirens, which lure men into the sea until they drown. Prufrock is so insecure, he doesn’t even think they’d sing to him.

Lines 126-131: In this, Prufrock is talking about how he is living life in a daydream sort of state. Lines 131 is a very sad line, which says “Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” This implies that when you live life in a dreamlike state, and when you finally are woken up by the important decisions that you have to make, you drown in the amount of responsibilities and worries that you have. This shows that he has realized how important his love decision is.