He lingers in this ‘happy place’, the chambers of the sea, until the human voices chattering around him in some drawing-room return him to the less pleasant reality of his life, and he ‘drowns’ again in the social pressures of those tea parties and the knowledge that society expects him to follow convention, marry one of the women he seems to find so intimidating, and settle down.Ĭuriously, many biographers of T. At the end of the poem, this oceanic imagery returns, with Prufrock hearing the song of the mermaids but thinking that they would not sing to him, only to each other.Įven in his fantasies he sees himself as inadequate, such is the crippling social anxiety of the early twentieth-century New England world (somewhat prudish and even puritanical in its attitudes). ![]() See the metaphors he uses to describe himself: he doesn’t just wish he’d been born someone else, but that he’d been born a completely different species, a crab or pair of ragged claws that roams the ocean bed. He also dreams of escaping the suffocating social world he inhabits, of tea parties and pretentious chatter about art (‘Talking of Michelangelo’). He’s a bit-part actor or walk-on part … even in his own life. Web.He is indecisive, anxious, self-conscious (he worries that the women are muttering behind his back about his thinning hair) – perhaps a bit like the famously indecisive and delaying Prince Hamlet from Shakespeare’s play, except that Prufrock doesn’t consider himself important enough to be compared to Hamlet (‘No! I am not Prince Hamlet …’). Yellow fog and smoke, an ugly city with empty streets, and a sky that is compared to a patient establish a depressive mood show the absence of any other emotions, and emphasize the fear of death and age peculiar to the speaker. Alfred Prufrock has some specific examples of imagery that emphasize the idea of devastation, destruction, corruption, and tiredness. In such a way, the poem The Love Song of J. It becomes one of the strong elements that are used to create a specific voice of the poem and convey the main message to readers. For this reason, Elliot selects the symbols of yellow fog and yellow smoke that cover the city, penetrate all corners and houses, and leave no place for some pleasant feelings and joy. However, it is usually associated with illness, weakness, dullness, depression, and bad mood. Yellow is a color that has multiple meanings that depend on the context. To make the effect stronger, the speaker uses specific colors to depict the overall mood of the city and of the whole poem “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, / The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes” (Eliot 15-16). Being supported with the idea of disease and patient introduced by previous lines, the given symbols develop the motif of hopelessness and depression. The imagery of an ugly city helps the speaker to convey his mood and show readers that the world is not attractive anymore because of multiple problems that affect him at the moment. There are “one-night cheap hotels” and “half-deserted streets” that also contribute to the creation of the image of decadence (Eliot 6, 4). ![]() On the contrary, he notices only ugly, unpleasant, or even repelling objects that also reflect his mood. Describing a city, the speaker does not use bright colors or attractive comparisons. The emotional tone created by the first symbol is supported by the next lines. The sky is not attractive for him because of the inability to notice the beauty that surrounds Prufrock. The given image helps to understand the current emotional state of the patient, or speaker, who feels nothing because of hard thoughts or emotions that affect him at the moment. ![]() Instead of comparing the sky with something attractive and beautiful, as many poets do, Eliot uses the idea of a patient who can feel nothing because of the ether. In lines, he makes a comparison “When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table,” which sets a tone for the whole poem (Elliot 2-3). Reading the poem, readers firstly see the speaker introducing the idea of sickness and age. ![]() 308 qualified specialists online Learn more Main body
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