Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Essay: The Existential Anguish of J. Al

The Existential Anguish of J. Alfred Prufrock Upon schooling Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the first question which sprang to my mind was the question of how Eliot, a poet who was in his mid-twenties at the time, was able to write a song dealing with the problems of aging in such a penetrating manner. Upon juxtaposed examination, however, I realized that Prufrocks aging was only incidental to his central problem. Prufrocks study problem is a problem of existential anguish. Prufrocks doubts about aging at a dinner party are merely one practice session of this anguish, and this party brings his psychology into sharp focus when the reader examines closely the secondment in which the poems events occur. It is true that Prufrocks overtly expressed fears all seem to root word from his aging. For instance, he mentions the thinning of his hair in lines 40, 41, and 82 and the aging itself is mentioned toward the pole of the poem I grow experienced . . . I grow ol d . . . I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. (lines 120-121) However, all of Prufrocks problems stem from his insecurity and his inability to fall upon his interest in the women at the party. How should I presume? he asks several(prenominal) times throughout the poem. (lines 54, 61, and 68) Prufrock is so entranced and frustrated by the women that either detail, including the arms braceleted and white and bare (line 63), the long fingers that smooth away the afternoon (line 76), and the skirts that trail along the floor (line 102) become everything to him in that moment. These small exposit so obsess Prufrock and so occupy his mind, in fact, that everything else ceases to exist for him. He does not simply wonder how he should p... ... of the poem, then become clear. In the epigram, he quoted someone directly addressing the reader in the first cardinal lines, he invites us to make our visit (line 12) and in the three lines of the poem, Eliot tells us that We have lingered ... Till human voices wake us, and we drown. (lines 129-131) At this point, Eliot invites us to order ourselves with the main character of the poem. J. Alfred Prufrock is not simply J. Alfred Prufrock. There is a rather a bit of Prufrock, with his self-doubt and his existential anguish, in all of us. scarcely unlike Dante, we do not return to a normal intent we are merely drowned in the chambers of the sea, (line 129), which the mermaids ride, uncaring. References Eliot, T.S. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in The McGraw-Hill Book of Poetry. Ed. Robert DiYanni and Kraft Rompf. New York McGraw-Hill, 1993.