Analysis of quotes from 'The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock' by T.S Eliot.

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Analysis of quotes from 'The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock' by T.S Eliot

J. Alfred Prufrock, a presumably middle-aged, intellectual, indecisive man, invites the reader along with him through the modern city. Eliot first achieves the extinction of his personality by setting "Prufrock" in the poetic form of a dramatic monologue. In this form, the speaker addresses another person and the reader plays the part of the silent listener; often the dramatic monologue is freighted with irony, as the speaker is partially unaware of what he reveals.

Prufrock feels he is confined to Hell and a life of loneliness in a lonely, alienating city. The images of the city are sterile and deathly; the night sky looks "Like a patient etherised upon a table". The use of enjambment, the running over of lines, further conveys the eeriness and sense of foreboding Prufrock has towards his bleak surroundings. This debasement continues throughout the poem, literally in the images and figuratively in their emotional associations for Prufrock.

The above images all speak to some part of Prufrock's personality. The etherised patient, for instance, reflects his inability to act while the images of the city depict a certain