–The poem opens, “Let us go then, you and I….” Whom do you think the speaker is addressing here?
–What is Prufrock’s relationship to time?
–Look at the description of the yellow smoke in the second and third stanzas of the poem. What do you make of this description?
–“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” laments Prufrock. What do you think this line means?
–Describe the overall mood of the poem. What feelings does it leave you with?
–In the final lines of the poem, the speaker shifts from “I” to “We.” How do we explain this shift?
T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
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Prufrock seems to believe that he has all the time in the world. While most people would think about how time is always going by so quickly, Prufrock sees time as something he has a lot of. Because of this, he isn’t in a rush to do anything, including asking out a woman that he likes. Throughout the poem, we see how Prufrock is really indecisive and yet, he believes that it’s okay to be indecisive because he has time to figure out what he wants, as shown by the quote, “And time yet for a hundred indecisions,/ And for a hundred visions and revisions” (32-33). Prufrock sees himself as having a positive relationship with time, as if time is on his side. However, we see how that’s not really the case because he’s growing older, time is ticking, and yet he still has many decisions to make. In a way, Prufrock is using this supposed “abundance” of time to excuse his indecisiveness and to continue to put off having to make decisions.
What is Prufrock’s relationship to time?
Prufrock’s relationship to time is interesting. It gets depressing when he starts to bald and grow older. In my opinion he is in denial when it comes to time. He thinks that he will have time to do the things he is afraid of doing. Prufrock lives in the future. This is showing he thinks he has enough of it to make his move. He is aware that death is approaching and that it’s only a matter of time and is scared to move forward. Time is not eternal and we should make the best of it. I believe he should go for what he wants and hope for the best outcome. For instance asking out a girl he likes.
The overall mood of the poem is filled with regret and sadness. It leaves the reader with a sense of sorrow and pity for Prufock. In the poem, Prufock is an aging character who is insecure. He constantly prolongs his desired actions, such as facing women. He fears that time and his appearance are growing thin, which pulls him back from approaching and conversing with women. He feels like he is unable to impress the sophisticated women. There’s a specific woman that he desires to approach. “And I have known the arms already, known them all, Arms that are braceleted and white and bare..And should I then presume?, And how should I begin?” Prufrock’s misery is evident here: he knows that she exists, he knows who she is, he thinks of her in terms of arms and eyes and bracelets, but he cannot approach her. Prufrock knows that his attempt to stay away will not make him happy. He is terrified to speak to the women because he feels he will not articulate his feelings proficiently. His shyness and insecurity, therefore, keep him back.
I think the overall mood of the poem is insecurity. This is since throughout the poem, Prufrock shows the low confidence he has when he is unable to talk to women. He gets this lack of confidence from the fact that he is aging, and is super thin. I am left with feelings of pity and sorrow since I feel bad for the fact that Prufrock can’t find it in himself to raise his confidence.
Prufrock’s relationship with time is that he is trying to buy time to find love as he gets older. He had trouble finding love because he was thinking about whether or not he wanted to get married. He feared that if he asked a woman out, he would get rejected. Prufrock struggled with time because he was waiting to find it without realizing how much time he had left. As we all know, time goes by so fast, and if you wait for longer, you might miss your chance. With love, if you wait too long, you may not be able to find it.
Prufrock’s relationship to time is that he believes that there is always time to do things later. He never seems to take the initiative to do what he wants, like talking to girls or doing certain things. Prufrock knows that he doesn’t have all the time in the world and is aging, but he still decides not to make use of his time. He is like a procrastinator, finding all the excuses not to do something and putting it off to do it later. In addition to being like a procrastinator, he is also indecisive and a coward. In the poem, there is a repetition of “Do I dare,” showing how he is scared and uncertain of his actions a lot of the time. It makes me wonder if he is scared to waste his time and not achieve the things he wants, which is why he always puts things off for later. In a way, his life doesn’t revolve around the idea that it is better to do it now than later; Instead, it is to take the initiative when things feel comfortable enough.
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” laments Prufrock. What do you think this line means?
I think Prufrock means that he has always controlled his life carefully like he would plan to do something at a certain age and he won’t do anything else. He spreads out the things he wants to do, seeming like he has so much time to accomplish things throughout his whole life. In fact, he doesn’t have much time left anymore because he gets things done too slow like he’s completing the “coffee spoon” portion at a time. I believe because he plans his life and decisions too carefully that this builds up to his cowardice trait to do anything that is out of his plan.
When Prufrock laments that he has “measured out [his] life with coffee spoons,” I think he is trying to describe how repetitive and dull his life is. Everything that he does on a daily basis is pretty much second nature to him and at this point, there is no variety at all and the coffee spoons speak to that predictability.
–What is Prufrock’s relationship to time?
Prufrock seems to think that time is infinite. I say this, because throughout the poem he repeats the sentiment especially when he talk about approaching the beautiful women, that there will be another day to do so. Prufrock seems to allow his insecurities to waste the finite amount of time that he has in this world. Prufrock fails to realize that tomorrow is never guaranteed, and that the longer he waits the less chances he has to achieve what he would like to.
What is Prufrock’s relationship to time?
In the text, Prufrock’s describes time in a way that he can control it. For example, when he describes that the moment he will talk to a woman, time will pause and that if he doesn’t get to talk to women he can always talk to them the next day as if time is infinite and he in particular has all the time in the world.
–Describe the overall mood of the poem. What feelings does it leave you with?
The overall mood of “The love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is emotional insecurity and reflective. Throughout the poem it shows how Prufrock is stuck in this mindset of being emotional insecure relationship with women. He talks throughout the poem that he is growing old and has the fear of be rejected by women. We see this happen twice as he says, women come and go/talking of Micheal Angelo, this shows how these women he has been surrounded with live in this higher establishment of wealth and how the speak is more fancy in his eyes. This shows that he finds this to be an intimidating factor because Prufrock may be rejected by these women based on their wealth and intelligence in his eyes. The feelings I left reading this poem is sympathy for Prufrock, because he is living in a society where he may have had these thoughts. For example, we can connect during his generation that wealth was a deciding factor of if someone is worthy of being in a relationship. We can connect this well in todays modern society, if someone is in a upper middle class or rich we see a similar insecurity of people fearful of approaching someone to have a relationship with said person. It is rather interesting to see how much connection this poem has even in 2021 because even though it left me sympathizing for him, it also made me feel like their was a much bigger issue he was bringing up and that would be reputation in society.
–Describe the overall mood of the poem. What feelings does it leave you with?
The poem leaves me with a feeling of desperation. From the beginning, where there is an excerpt from Dante’s inferno, to the repeating lines, I correlate these with feelings of anxiety, desire to do things, but not being able to, which is a terrible feeling. It can be crippling, and may also be associated with depression that the speaker is feeling. Because the poem is written in the form of an inner monologue, I think that this look into the author’s thoughts is like a description of his own personal hell. He describes time passing by, and talks about how he is an older man, but he doesn’t seem to change his ways, and cannot get passed his anxiety to act upon what he wants to do. After all, people always talk about how the worst type of pain is regret, and the poet seems to have a lot of it.