Analysis of Prufrock and Other Elliot Poetry Essay

Produce a close analysis saying how typical the section of The love Song of Alfred J Prufrock that you have chosen is of Eliots style and concern

T. S. Eliot is known as one of the most influential poets of the 20th century as his poems pushed the boundaries of traditional poetry. I believe the first forty lines of The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock reflect many typical themes which occur in Eliot poetry in this collection.

The main theme of The Love Song of J Arthur Prufrock is of a man looking at his life and believing that it is all over and that he has lived out his best days. He immediately draws the reader into the mindset of the persona or Prufrock by having Prufrock interact with his audience by using second person as well as first person narrative. Eliot uses the simile of a patient etherised upon a table which could be said to symbolise the fact that Prufrock is as numb as the unconscious patient as he too has put his life on hold however unlike the patient it is because Prufrock is too scared to make any change to scared rather than because he is knocked unconscious by a drug.

There is often a feeling of unease and awkwardness in Eliots poetry. One of the ways this appears is through the use of questions. In The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock he doesnt actually ask the uneasy awkward questions that plague his other poems. For example in Portrait of a Lady when the suitor sits back and asks himself, are these ideas right or wrong .In The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock as he questions whether time is running out for him at the end of a line which he asks oh do not ask, what is it? Let us go and make our visit . The question sounds rushed as persona sound impatient and too busy to answer to questions.

Time is another important theme in Eliots poetry is time. In The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock we begin in the early evening but as the poem continues we are catapulted from the evening to the next afternoon then back to the evening again. This sense of chaos in time could signify the need that Prufrock feels for change and the disorder in his life but as he cannot gather the courage to act on it in his own life he vents it in his interior monologue. The poem begins in the evening as in preludes and both poems are negative, as they focus on bleaker, darker imagery. The use of evening makes the mood of the poem darker and bleaker as it is the end of the day and the end of the brightness and positivity. Especially in Prufrock we seem to feel that the best part of his life is over.

In this poem Eliot focuses on facades and shallowness too. In Prufrock we see the vainness of the women as they come and go, speaking of Michelangelo showing that by drifting in and out of the room never really fully absorbing their environment or the conversation matter. In fact throughout Eliots work we see a lack of understanding for women as in all of the poems we have studied they have been shown as superficial and small minded especially in poems such as Portrait of a Lady and Preludes .

Eliot uses imagery of smoke and fog become a regular theme in this collection. In The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock the fog makes the journey that we are being taken on seem even dirtier and seedier than previously thought, as it is described as yellow which reminds us of decay and dirt. The smoke has also been personified into a cat which could be used to show the fog creeping into every corner and crevice and it could also be used to add to the drifting atmosphere of the poem as the extended metaphor of the fog cat seems lazy and relaxed as it lingered upon the pools and slipped by the terrace.

Eliot uses scenes and locations to portray dirtiness and seediness as well as hinting at poverty. In the first verse we are told about one night cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants as although oysters and restaurants sound luxurious and posh in The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock the restaurants are meant to sound dirty as the sawdust on the floor is there to soak up mess and in Eliots time period oysters were the things which the poor people ate as they couldnt afford much else. This also helps add to the setting as we realise that our journey is through the back streets where these types of dingy places are in fact Eliot goes as far to describe the streets that Prufrock is taking us down as being long and rambling or like a tedious argument.

There is a lot of repetition in The Love of of J Alfred Prufrock however it is used for different effects but mainly to give across the air of desperation which Prufrock feels. At the very beginning of the poem Let us go is repeated three times. This repetition gives an edge of despondency to the persona of Prufrock as the repeating makes him sound almost forceful and almost desperate as he tries to take us on a journey into his life. At the same time he repeats the word time as if he is trying to convince himself that he is still young and important and that he can still change the his life. There is the repetition of in the room...Michelangelo which is repeated to show that however many times these women enter his life they never stay around long enough to make an impression but remain shallow and self centred.

In conclusion throughout Prufrock and other observations Eliot uses his distinctive style to draw his poems together. With his distinctive recurring themes, Prufrock appears to be a typical piece of Eliots work, due to the time scheme that continues through the poem.

1026 words without quotations