The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock Analysis

Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a critical analysis of the social constructs created by human beings which confine them within the self-imposed restrictions against following which they truly desire in life. The restrictions are often psychological and mostly take the disguise of fear of the unknown, self-doubt and loathing, and a characteristic low self-esteem that drives an individual into believing that they are lacking, unqualified and not fit for certain undertakings in the society or life for that matter. T. S. Besides alluding to Dante’s Inferno the poem also alludes to Shakespeare’s Hamlet to further condemn himself to self-loathing. “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be,” he purports in line 111 utterly refusing to take the reins of his life and guiding it to his desired destination.

Instead, he prefers to be the weaker role of doing as the society expects and serving to its restrictive expectations, “Am an attendant lord, one that will do,” (Line 112). Prufrock is also in touch with the society’s conventional way of life even though he wishes to overcome its bound over him. Religion or rather his spirituality is evident in Prufrock’s mention of Lazarus and quotation of a verse from the biblical book of Ecclesiastes when he claims that there is a time to murder and create (Line 28 & 94). He is also anxious to make a move for the woman he desires being aware of the fact that time is not on his side. Eliot captures the speaker’s confusion and anxiety over the time constraints using polysyndeton and asyndeton in lines 101-102.