is a man who is alone in a world full of people who are detached from reality. In The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Prufrock is an Individual who has lived alone, and will always live alone. He spends his time attempting to meet people and his time goes by he fails to connect with the people he meets:
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
this inability to connect leads him to a deeper pit of despair, and as he ages the meaningfulness of life seems to be lost upon him:
For I have known them all already, known them all:–
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
He has become an empty shell he has lost faith in everything and like so many in life he falls to despair. This despair leads down a road of loss until finally there is no escape. the sorrow the unaccepted individual feels is enough to destroy them, which in the case of Mr. Prufrock it does.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Prufrock however is not the only one in this world who wallows in despair, The women in his world jabber on about nothings and allow the world to pass by them. This dividing feeling of solitude destroys Prufrock’s world, and with it him.
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1 February 2008 at 6:50 pm
Kel
Fix your word ‘attempting’. Valid point though, how it’s all really related. I like it. Prufrock really does lose faith in everything. He kind of like.. looks at himself like he’s already gone… you see?
2 February 2008 at 2:50 am
jv06
Kelly, I like what you’re saying. He really does seem to have no faith in any potential he may or may not have.
Morrow, I’d like to focus on your last point, how people, many people wallow in despair. My question is whether or not Eliot portrays everyone as wallowing in despair. I think it would be extremely interesting to get into the minds of the jabbering women. I have a hunch that they would be wishing that they could say something of purpose, seeing no reason to their lives other that to speak of nothing. It seems like they would also feel a lot of despair.
2 February 2008 at 3:54 am
sirero
we have to acknowledge that one of two things has to be true, either that the women are just an illusion in Prufrocks mind in wich case they can exist without emotion. or that they are truly sentient beings, in wich case they have emotions. They speak of michelangelo on all occasions meaning the conversation most likely has nothing to do with anything. And from there I inferred that they must have an emotion about the fact that they ar talking of nothing. In wich case they either feel
1. Happy talking about nothing, in wich case there airheads and are hardly better than the emotionless illusions
2. feeling trapped in a conversation they cant escape from, thus despairing. as I said far more interesting
Remember this is purely inference.
7 March 2008 at 6:54 pm
ashcp4
I like how you compar Prufrock to the girls whereas I just mentioned them both in two completely separated ways. Your begining still confuses me… if Is wasn’t capitilized I would have gotten it. Good job. =]
23 March 2008 at 11:35 pm
mopo07
A bit confused at the beginning but good job. when reading this i almost felt bad for this man and the fact that he has lived alone his whole life. It weird that we ad humans think that we all have a mate out there but i guess this shows that it also could be false.