Great Works II

As I read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, I was interested in seeing what would happen next. The first stanza has the lines “Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets / The muttering retreats / Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels / And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells”, which made me think that J. Alfred Prufrock wanted to escape from something with his loved one, as if their love was forbidden, like in Romeo and Juliet. Cheap hotels and sawdust restaurants are not exactly high-class place. Those lines, along with the following lines “Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent” make me think of a gloomy area, a place that people usually stay away from. The next lines “To lead you to a overwhelming question… / Oh, do not ask, “What is it? / Let us go and make our visit” leaves the reader wondering “What is this question, and who are they going to visit?” The lines “In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” are repeated several times in the poem, suggesting that Prufock is at a place where people are having chats. Next, Eliot mentions a yellow fog/yellow smoke, which reminded me of the topic of our previous class, modernism and industrialization. The yellow fog/smoke are reminiscent of an area with lots of factories. He also says “There will be time to murder and create / And time for all the works and days of hands”, showing that things are destroyed and remade, like turning over a new leaf. Since the “In the room…/…Michelangelo” are repeated, it makes me think that Prufrock is just having visions while the women he’s with are just going on with their conversations. Prufock mentions “Time to turn back and descend the stair / With a bald spot in the middle of my hair / (They will say “How his hair is growing thin!”) / My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, / My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin / (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)” It shows that he believes that he doesn’t belong at this place where everyone is more focused on their other conversations to notice him, so he thinks he should turn back. He says that it doesn’t matter that he’s dressed elegantly, since he’s worried about what people think of him. The next two stanzas that start with “For I have known them all already, known them all-” and “And I have known the eyes already, known them all-” shows that he’s familiar with this behavior and is getting tired of this routine. He then mentions that he’s observing the women at his party, saying “And how should I then presume? / And how should I begin?” He’s nervous about approaching one of these women and talking to them, as if it can go horribly wrong. He mentions “And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! / Smoothed by long fingers, / Asleep…tired…or it malingers”. Malingering, as I learned in my psychology class, is when people pretend to have an illness or disease for personal gain. It shows that he isn’t feeling very positive. Then, I realized that the poem is about him being too nervous to approach any of these women, immediately thinking of worst-case scenarios. I tend to be like that as well, and I realized that I’m very similar to Prufrock in how I behave. I tend to think of worst-case scenarios when I have worries, just like him.