![]() Notice the ironic juxtaposition of the serious and the trivial.Prufrock falls back into trivial speculations whether he shall eat a peach or part his hair behind. But suddenly he is arrested by his thought of old age he says, He is ‘Politic, cautious and meticulous’. He is conscious about his incapability, weakness, failures, inferiority and timidity. But if he decides to meet the women, he thinks, how should he meet them? How should he begin talking with them? He is quite helpless and undecided. He recognizes his passion but cannot rise to it. He is troubled but his own confused desires. He is unable to communicate with other people. Prufrock finds himself uncomfortable in the crowded parties. But he says, “I have measured my life with coffee spoons”. Further, Prufrock says that he has already known the women, their evenings, afternoons and mornings. He needs some more time to pluck up courage. Prufrock is culture –conscious and fashionable. Yet he shows his mock-heroic behaviour through the images of ‘collar mounting firmly to the chin’, ‘necktie rich and modest’ and in his thought of disturbing the world. His weakness and debility is exposed through the images of ‘descending stair’, ‘bald spot on the head’, ‘hair growing thin’ etc. He is incapable of love –physically and spiritually. He seeks time to prepare himself for the visit and for meeting other faces.īut Prufrock is, now, suffering from signs of old age. The poet uses various images to express Prufrock’s mental state: “ In the room, the women come and go, Talking of Michelangelo”.Īre these lines satiric? If so, what is the point of satire? Prufrock reaches there in imagination and comes away without having done what he set out to do. Prufrock is going towards the room where the women are talking about the art of Michelangelo. What are these overwhelming questions? Maybe, these are the questions of doubts, of love. The ‘I’ leads him to ‘overwhelming questions’. The ‘I’ leads ‘you’ through “half-deserted streets”, “muttering retreats and winding streets”. He wishes to propose formally to the woman he loves. The speaker is going to a social gathering. ‘You’ may refer to an aspect of the speaker’s own personality. But we know that the ‘I’ is the speaker and he is persuading the ‘you’ to go some where. Who are this ‘I’ and this ‘you’? We don’t know. The title of the poem suggests it is a love song of Prufrock which is a sad song of failure. It reveals his inability to love and sing in a brash urban society. It presents the thoughts, fears and resolutions of a typical modern man. ![]()
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