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With the opening line “Let us go then, you and i,” invites the reader to hear his story that’s filled with a lot of doubt, failure and ruin. In the poem Prufrock moves through what appears to be a London landscape, passing through half deserted streets with a view he paints as a portrait of a dissolute city. The locations from cityscapes, to ocean images that shows Prufrock’s emotional distance from the world. Prufrock seems to be addressing a potential lover, with who he would like to have sex with but doesn’t know what to do or how to act.
In his mind it is clear that he hears the comments others make about him. This “overwhelming question” he has an obsession with is one that takes control of his thoughts and as he walks down the streets to answer that very question but not knowing if that’s even where the answer actually is the mystery of that question gives the poem that further push.
Prufrock decides to get into meditation to try and remind himself that there is still time, i guess it is to feel comforted that he wants.
It’s not clear what his desires are or what he wants to do with time because his mind is a mess. The scenes constantly jumps around, this time it goes back to the parlor of women but he is shy and unhappy about his appearance. He compared himself to Prince Hamlet in a very unflattering but accurate self portrait.
Prufrock ends with the himself in a shakespeare plays as hamlet. As the poem moves into the conclusion , Prufrock chants “i grow old… i grow old…” he see’s himself walking along the beach and it becomes noticable in a way that brings up the topic of death that Prufrock fears so much.
Prufrock reflects on his experiences and considers asking the question that lingers in his mind. Prufrock seems to be detachment from his surroundings he goes in between his awareness and his dream state being changed by his imagination creating the problem he has with communication he’s trapped with questioning and yearning.
Prufrock faces the threat of mystery and time claiming to have confront time and morality when he claims to “have seen the moment of my greatness flicker.” However, the final lines of the poem depict the fulfillment of his inevitable death. “ we have lingered in chambers of the sea, by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown, till human voices wake us, and we drown.” that final image of drowning, most likely occurs in Prufrock’s imagination meaning that the mystery question he is so concerned about drowns at the end of the book he however comes to the realization that “drowning” could mean that he would return to his own reality. The series of hypothetical encounters in the poem lead to a sort of epiphany rather than leading nowhere. Prufrock thinks that he “should have been a pair of ragged claws / scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” which i believe he feels are the garbage eaters who live off the sea.
Thomas S. Eliot's Love Song. (2022, Feb 10). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/thomas-s-eliot-s-love-song-essay
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