Prufrock than talks about the “Yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpanes” in the second stanza. Although Eliot said that the fog was suggestive of the factory smoke from his hometown St. Louis the associations with a cat are obvious. The fog cat seems to be looking at a roomful of fashionable women “talking of Michelangelo”. Unable to enter it ligers pathetically on t5he outside of the house and we can imagine Prufrock avoiding yet desiring physical contact in much the same way. Eliot again uses an image of physical debasement to explore self pitying state. The cat goes down from the high windowpanes to “the corners of the evenings”, to “the pools that stand in drains”, lets soot from the high chimney fall on its back, and then leaps from terrace to the ground. This particular soot blackened cat appears weak, non confrontational and afraid to enter the house. Moreover, Prufrocks ‘prude in a frock’ effeminacy emerges through the cat, as felines generally have female associations.
The most visually precise images in the poem are those of Prufrock himself, a Prufrock carefully composed only to be decomposed by the watching eyes of another into thin arms and legs, a balding head brought in upon a platter.
“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”)
Prufrock is obsessed with his image. No matter how hard he tries he is always critical of his image and believes others will be too.
Prufrock also mentions “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”. This signifies that he has broken his entire life into small episodes, and individual experiences and he feels his life is inadequate, just as a coffee spoon alone is inadequate for the taking of afternoon tea. It shows how meaning less his life is.
As detailed Prufrock’s eyes are, he feels the effect of the penetrating social gaze far more deeply.
And I have known the eyes already, known them all
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phase,
and when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall
“Sprawling on the pin” refers to the practice of pinning insect specimens for study, suggesting Prufrock feels similarly scrutinized. Thus, Prufrock is easily defined, exposed and laid bare for all to see. He also clearly ashamed of himself comparing his life with the contents of an ashtray.
The poem registers throughout a neurotic sexual consciousness. Prufrock is morbidly fascinated by and fearful of female sexuality. “Arms that are braceleted and white and bare/ (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) is a passage in which oppositions of bare/hair, white/brown and bracelated/downed define terms (positive/negative) to register that revulsion and recoil. Prufrock has paid a great deal of attention to detail, as though he has thought about a woman many times before, but always lacking that final courage to follow that.
He describes the “evenings, mornings, afternoons” and the odd order gives us pause. While it primarily describes a cycle from night to t5he next day, reinforcing the idea of repetition, its abrupt switch from ‘evenings’ to ‘mornings’ echoes Eliot’s image of vertical descent present in the first three stanzas. Prufrock descends the stairs and he watches smoke rising from the pipes and lonely men “leaning out of windows”.
Prufrock feels “He should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas”. Prufrock is desperately looking for a refuge or it maybe he wants a brainless life of a little creature that scuttles along the sea and has no trouble finding a mate because it requires no effort.
Prufrock then gives us concrete realistic scenes from the social world. Prufrock’s propensity to move backwards and forwards is suggestive of his nearness to death, of his backpedaling down into hell. The Dante epigram casts a deathly pallor over the entire poem and Prufrock himself sees “the eternal footman hold my coat, and snicker”. While he says in the next line “in short, I was afraid” in reference to his fear for social action, he may also be referring to the deathly figure awaiting him.
The only thing in Prufrock’s life not paralyzed is time. It marches on and Prufrock laments “I grow old…I grow old…/I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled”. The rolled trouser, a popular bohemian style at that time, is a pathetic attempt to ward off death.
Fantasizing a world where these problems do not exist is a pleasant daydream for Prufrock. He imagines a peaceful world under the sea where social classes do not exist. He will “walk upon the beach”, though he probably will not venture near the water. He has had a romantic vision of mermaids singing an enchanting song, but assumes that they will not sing to him. His insecurity is still present and seems incurable. He will continue to live in a world of romantic daydreams-“the chambers of the sea”, but his fantasy world is brought to a crashing halt easily. “Till human voices wake us and we drown”. His only happiness can be found in daydreams and can be destroyed easily as such.
