That Love Tune...

In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot presents the persona of a hopeless romantic. Prufrock is a man who realizes that he is now old and becoming increasingly unattractive to women he meets. All his life the women have been within reach, “in the room” and “talking of Michelangelo” but Prufrock was indecisive and waited too long, believing there would always be time. But now he is growing bald and thin, and wishing he had only acted when he had the chance. Eliot offers an insight on life; the importance of “now” and not waiting as life passes you by. Prufrock fails to act on impulse, and while he contemplates his options he misses opportunities, and wallows in regret.

The poem is divided into a series of twelve, eight, four, three, two and one line stanzas. Eliot most likely varies the length of his stanzas to emphasis the thoughts expressed within them, giving longer thoughts more lines to develop. For example, the sixth stanza centers on the eternal question “‘do I dare?’” and how Prufrock’s indecision prevents his action. This stanza is one of the longer ones at twelve lines, using the length to develop Prufrock’s major flaw. Here we see that Prufrock thinks critically of himself and how he is perceived by women. Now compare this stanza to the tenth stanza, which is a three line stanza. This stanza describes the lonely men of a back alley with whom Prufrock relates. Since the point of this stanza is much more obvious, Eliot only uses three lines for conciseness.

“Prufrock” also includes some crucial examples of inclusio. Eliot uses inclusio to enclose key themes of this poem. The most obvious is the couplet “In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo,” which appears after the first and the fourth stanzas. Between the occurrences of this couplet, Prufrock focuses mainly on his conception of time. The women come and go, but he believes he has infinite time. After the reprise of the couplet, he realizes that time is passing him by as he fails to take action with relationships. Another example is the line “So how should I presume?” Here Prufrock conveys his low self esteem, believing that women have labeled him for failure. This is his reasoning for hesitation, the underlying notion of rejection. The inclusio expresses Prufrock’s frustration and really hammers the question that plagues his life: “So how should I presume?”

The most unique part of this poem is the last five stanzas. All of these stanzas are three lines or less, creating a choppy rhythm for the conclusion. Eliot uses the repetition of “I grow old” and ellipses to signify the passage of time. We find Prufrock contemplating how his life will be when he has finally grown old and more detached from society. Eliot alludes to John Donne’s poem with a similar persona, “Song,” with the line “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each,” but adds the Prufrock pessimism with the following one line stanza: “I do not think that they will sing to me.” The final two stanzas are characterized by the surreal imagery of mermaids and the sea, further accentuating the impossibility of Prufrock’s chance for romance. Finally, the poem ends with a serious deflation of emotion, as he shakes out of his dream and realizes it can never be.