When People Are Asked If They Got What They Wanted out of Their Lives, Hardly

When people are asked if they got what they wanted out of their lives, hardly

anyone would say yes immediately. Most would reminisce and look back on what they have and have not done, but eventually the answer will most likely be no; Prufrock is not an exception. Prufrock is a timid, indecisive, isolated and suffering modern man who is searching for something to break him for the dull life that he has been leading in an imaginary world T.S. Eliot had set up. Throughout T.S. EliotЎЇs poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Prufrock guides the reader through his life discussing his surroundings, his certain personalities and characteristics (those of other people also), which thwarted his desire to live a life he wished to live.

Early in the poem, Eliot uses various imageries to illustrate PrufrockЎЇs meaningless surroundings, which in fact affected him personally. Prufrock lives in a city that insinuates dullness and depression. Prufrock describes the night as "restless" and says that the streets are "tedious arguments of insidious intent" (8); from this, we can readily infer PrufrockЎЇs dissatisfaction in his environment and life. Eliot also discusses the prepared masks which people hide under in the social gatherings in order to hide their true selves (To prepare a face to meet the faces you meet (27)). Later on, Eliot again uses an image of vertical debasement to describe PrufrockЎЇs self-pitying state; he, represented as Ў°the yellow fogЎ± goes down from windowpanes to the Ў°corners of the evening,Ў± to the Ў°pools that stand in drains,Ў± falls on its back from chimneys, slips by the terrace to the ground. This imagery portrays PrufrockЎЇs vertical descent and the fact that he is afraid to enter the house. All these imagery leave the reader feeling that where Prufrock is at is not pleasant, but dark and depressing.

Although it is not explicitly stated, we can easily infer that Prufrock is very wavering and unable to advance in time. He is deeply rooted in present where he indecisively cycles around; Ў°Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisionsЎ± (31~33). Prufrock keeps insisting and convincing himself that there is time to do many things in the world and revise plans, yet in fact, there is no time and the only time is right now. It is evident that PrufrockЎЇs indecisive thoughts contribute to his paralysis, leaving him unable to make a decision and act on it, just as the image of the yellow fog was unable to penetrate the house. PrufrockЎЇs indecisiveness is further clarified in lines 111~119, as he states he is not Prince Hamlet, but merely an auxiliary character in life. Hamlet had the same problem that Prufrock has; however, the difference between the two is that Hamlet eventually suppressed his cowardice and acted on it in