Modern-Day Anxieties in T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” - A look at how the things that Prufrock worries about are still relevant in life today.
|
|
Business Related Topics...
Entertainment, Recreation & Sports Related Topics...
Health & Fitness Related Topics...
Home & Family Related Topics...
You are here: DIME Home > Books and Reviews > Modern-Day Anxieties in T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
A look at how the things that Prufrock worries about are still relevant in life today.
Author: Paul Thomson
Date: Feb 12, 2010 - 7:37:11 AM
Printer friendly page
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is one of those poems that can seem horribly sad one day, and incredibly absurd the next. Written by T. S. Eliot and published in 1915, it addresses the themes of isolation, industrialized cities, and great unease with the world. You might have encountered this in a unit on poetry, and like many students, you might not have been impressed by its long-windedness. For all its over-the-top wallowing around, though, there is a lot in the poem that speaks to anxieties we have today.
The speaker, Prufrock (whoever he might be) spends a lot of time worrying about growing old. He will “have a bald spot in the middle of [his] hair,” and then, behind his back, “They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’” Poor Prufrock – he’s got a bit of a self-esteem issue, and seems to feel like he’ll be losing something of himself when he loses his hair, not because of how it will make him feel, but because of how other people will see him. Have you ever heard of botox? It’s a different solution to the same problem.
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" also expresses anxiety about what really matters in the world. One of the poem’s most famous lines is, “In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo.” Something about the women’s back and forth movement suggests that they’re just kind of milling around, and aren’t doing anything particularly important. What about Michelangelo, then? Is he important? This stanza, repeated several times throughout the poem, seems to be also asking whether art matters, if it’s just reviewed and talked about in a shallow way. We don’t think Eliot’s trying to hate on art – after all, he’s all about filling his work up with illusions to other works (see “The Waste Land”), and it seems unlikely that he’d attempt this poem if it was all meaningless. However, it’s kind of sad to think of Michelangelo as just a buzzword, being passed around by some random women with nothing better to do.
Prufrock is also worried about something we hear about all too often these days: pollution. That yellow fog, catlike and almost fluffy, probably wouldn’t be as cuddly as it might seem. Fog itself is nothing special, but yellow is a strange color for it to be. If you’re not sold on the idea that the fog has been turned yellow from pollution (maybe it’s just yellow from streetlights?), at least take a close look at the “soot that falls from chimneys.” There’s something falling from the sky that’s not rain, which seems ominous, not to mention bad for your asthma. You try going to sleep at night feeling like a big cloud of pollution has just curled up softly around your house.
This is characteristically modernist poetry, and worth a second look if it left a bad taste in your mouth in school. It’s easy to dismiss Prufrock as a pathetic guy who doesn’t have the guts to deal with his own life, but the poem gets easier to understand if you recognize that some of the things he worries about, you worry about, too.
View all articles by Paul Thomson
Old Money vs. New Money in the Great GatsbyMar 21, 2011 - 8:12:20 AM The concept of “new” and “old” money is hard for the average modern reader to understand. In most parts of the country, the term “nouveau riche” isn’t often used, and with the onslaught of new Internet millionaires and billionaires in the last decade, the judgment is certainly no longer there. Today’s America values the self-made man or woman, the “rags to riches” story. A person who makes her own fortune is smart and innovative, an entrepreneur. She’s someone to be admired.... [Read the full story] |
Imagination and Story TellingDec 30, 2010 - 5:22:45 AM A major benefit to encouraging storybook creation and writing in your kids? It stimulates their imaginations.... [Read the full story] |
Joining Online Book ClubsOct 29, 2010 - 5:59:09 AM We all know that books are an important part of our lives. They give us knowledge and information that we need to be able to have a more enriching existence. They can be able to enrich our imagination and creativity and our character as a person. People read because of many reasons. There are those who read to get rid of boredom and be entertained while others do it to gain more knowledge about a certain topic.... [Read the full story] |
Modern-Day Anxieties in T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”Feb 12, 2010 - 7:37:11 AM "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is one of those poems that can seem horribly sad one day, and incredibly absurd the next. Written by T. S. Eliot and published in 1915, it addresses the themes of isolation, industrialized cities, and great unease with the world. You might have encountered this in a unit on poetry, and like many students, you might not have been impressed by its long-windedness. For all its over-the-top wallowing around, though, there is a lot in the poem that speaks to anxieties we have today.... [Read the full story] |
| Search for articles: |
|
|
 Putting Up a Small Commercial Printing Business |
| So You Might Be Unemployed And Desire To Become A San Francisco Real Estate Investor Now |
| Meditation and Mindfulness: Dealing With Emotion |
| CPA Websites: Five Essential Ideas for Composing Convincing Articles |
| Set Goals In Order to Come Up With Your Action Plan |
| Is the Air in Your Home Safe to Breathe? |
| Coarse Fishing Tackle Review: The JW Young 13ft Trotter Rod |
| Section 1031 Exchanges For San Diego Real Estate Investors |
| Phoenix Real Estate Investing For Highest Possible Earnings |
| Legendary are the Volk Racing TE37 Wheels |
| Developing the Next Generation Wall Station (ChaseDesk™) for Healthcare - A Case Study |
| What are step down transformers? |
| Introducing Sharehype, the Revolutionary Tool for Online Marketers |
| Rewards To Shopping For Austin Real Estate On The Web |
| Hydroponics for Beginners |
Would you like submit your articles and have them approved on a priority status? Find out more about how you can become a Priority author for pennies a day! Click here.
|
| Dime-co.com Home |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
About
Featured Authors
Subscribe to our RSS feed for immediate alerts