Prufrock
“Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
This poem demonstrates the condition of modern people, according to some experts. For one thing, it assumes an understanding of some basic Freudian psychology popular in the 20th century. The speaker J. Alfred Prufrock says, "Let us go now, you and I/When the evening is spread out against the sky/Like a patient etherized upon a table." The YOU AND I probably refers to his ID (the uncivilized one of the three of Freud's components of the personality--id, ego, and superego). Since this is a love song, according to the title, we figure old Prufrock is out looking for love. And he is indeed but mostly, it seems, physical love.
As he wanders through the streets past "one-night cheap hotels," we start to recognize the neighborhood. There are some of those in Jackson, not to mention the "sawdust restaurants with oyster shells," that lined the coast for 50 years before Katrina. These are wonderful, evocative images that put us right in the picture. Then he starts pondering "the question." Reckon what he plans to ask some woman?
Now read the stanza starting "The yellow fog." What animal do you see in this description of the fog? What this stanza adds besides basic coolness (Did you see Cats? It was written from an Eliot book about cats) is the further dirtying of the atmosphere. It's not dark or daylight, either. Like Prufrock, the atmosphere and the time of day are in between, undecided as of yet,
Then he begins the stanza about time, time for "a hundred decisions and indecisions. . .revisions," etc. He doesn't want to put it out there, whatever IT is. He is afraid of moving ahead with his question. Then after the Michelangelo line, he goes back to the time-to-reconsider idea before reminding himself that he is aging--with his bald spot and thin hair, etc.-- and acknowledges that he has "known them all already." Probably the woman he is looking for is a lot like all the other women he's had before. This guy is world-weary; he believes he has seen it all and there is nothing left to discover in life.
The stanza beginning at Line 55 pictures him "fixed" or "pinned" to the wall by some woman's eyes. I always think of a biology bug collection when I read this. He must feel like an insect when they give him that look. Then he states my favorite line: "I should have been a pair of ragged claws/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas." The crab image here is interesting in all its implications. Prufrock doesn't want to make a decision. What if it's the wrong one, or what if he woman rejects him? A crab doesn't move forward or backward, only sideways--which is what Prufrock is doing. Moreover, a crab doesn't have to comb his thinning hair or wear a "necktie rich and modest." He just snags whatever female scuttles by.
The next stanzas imagine the rejection. What if she says, "That is not what I meant at all." He's aware of his indecision and foolishness when he says that he's not Prince Hamlet (another indecisive character) but the fool in the play, most probably Polonius.
Then he ends with the reference to the Sirens from The Odyssey that lured men to their death. Again, the women are all threatening to him. So, think about the man speaking here. What does he want; what is he afraid of? In what ways is he like modern people? Self-focused? Uncertain? Devoid of faith and all the values that give meaning to life? All of these are none of them?