— Abdulla al Sudman
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T. S. Eliot, is a great work because it comments in a person’s thoughts versus their actions. we as human beings tend to believe that we could do so much in our lives, that our abilities are endless and we have free will and whatever we do. But this poem showcases that’s not true at all. Prufrock has wishes of romanticizing and loving this woman that he has in his mind, to spend the rest of his life with her. This is the only thing that will make him content with life. He imagines every single location in which they could spend their time together. He probably has an idea of every single stage of their life together but he locks the ability to start it in the first place. He thinks of his inadequacies and stops himself from acting, that’s an upsetting aspect and also an honest aspect of the story. There’s so many people romanticizing so many ideas but unless we take the steps to get there, all those thoughts and all those ideas are completely irrelevant and worthless. We’re just procrastinating life without even realizing that it’s the case. This is a poem that is beyond time or era because it speaks to all generations. It’s human to feel weak, to feel inadequate so when you get a poem that showcases this inadequacy it’s so beautiful, it should be considered a great work then. It’s realistic, not everyone in the world thinks of something and acts accordingly every single day of their life. Who knows what kind of will that be if that was the case but it definitely isn’t the world that we live in. This is why I feel like this poem should be used as a form of motivation to control our own lives and see where we say we’re going to do something but in reality we’re just lying to results. Procrastinating on your job or your school work or any other thing is okay, most of the time, but procrastinating on serious life decisions that shouldn’t be okay. The main reason this poem is so impactful is because not only do we feel bad for the narrator but we get a sense that we could relate to them equally as much. We could replace ourselves with the narrator and they wouldn’t change the thing because we have all been in that same spot. This is why it’s so important and why it’s a great work.
