The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S Elliot

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S Elliot

  • Submitted By: ALousiseD
  • Date Submitted: 11/25/2008 1:02 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 557
  • Page: 3
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‘The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’
T.S Eliot
In T.S Eliot’s poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, the persona J. Alfred Prufrock expresses the absurdity of his society and his lack of belonging from his social class, Through the use of symbolism, rhythm, rhetorical questions and fragmentation of the body, irony and tone.
Eliot uses the fragmentation of the body and symbolism to express Prufrock’s disconnection to his society as well the use of irony to express the absurdity of it. In the quotation “ to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create”, Prufrock fragmentises a person into just a face and then the uses the word ‘face’ to symbolise the mask he must put on to be accepted by his society. The irony to this is that he later refers to everyone else wearing masks when he say ‘to meet the faces that you meet’ therefore saying that to be accepted by society everyone must be someone who they’re not.
In the second part of the quotation ‘There will be time to murder and create’ Prufrock describes the severe cost that conforming to his society takes from you, yourself. He describes that you must ‘murder’ (kill) yourself and become something completely different to belong to the society.
Further through the poem Prufrock expands in the absurdity and shallowness of his society through the use of rhythm, half rhyming and a rhetorical question. Prufrock also reveals his insecurities and fear of rejection from society in the quotation “should I, after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment into crisis”, the pauses and rhetorical question create a sense of his insecurities and his fear of rejection from them. The listing and sing song rhythm of line “should I, after tea and cakes and ices” creates a mocking and shallow tone towards Prufrock’s society. The choice of words “strength” and ‘force’ also creates a tone of desperation that Prufrock feels the need for something...

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