This document provides a critical analysis of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock". It analyzes how the poem uses dramatic monologue to convey the inner anxieties and vulnerabilities of the narrator, Prufrock. Specifically, it examines how Eliot employs literary devices like metaphor, imagery and word choice to reveal Prufrock's shy, egoistic and paralyzed personality. The analysis also discusses how the poem portrays the thoughts of a traditional western man in the early 1900s who is full of loneliness and indecision, unable to act or seize opportunities in life.

1. Critical Analysis of love song of J. Alfred Prufrock By
T.S. Eliot
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a poem composed by T.S. Eliot In 1910, and published
in 1915. The literary revolution at the turn of the 20th century, which emphasized themes of
separation, loneliness, and the declining influence of conventional sources of authority, is
considered one of the quintessential works of modernism. The poem is a dramatic monologue in
which the author narrates his inner life's anxieties and worries.
The poem reflects on unveiling the sense of vulnerability of Prufrock, which is not directly
presented but craftily presented in the form of hints to readers by adopting the dramatic
monologue as a literary instrument. The usage of Dante's epigraph, which explicitly
communicates Prufrock's reluctance to talk out his emotions specifically in life like he does in
the poem, strengthens this tossing of hints to the readers.
The epigraph initially seems to be a nonsensical and detached fragment, but when it is put
together with the context of the rest of the poem, the readers begin to get hints as well as
significance that sheds light on Prufrock's inner feelings. While Prufrock is unable to express his
emotions, this proem is generated by Eliot that essentially exposes the narrator's vulnerability.
Eliot, as a professional craftsman, uses the epigraph as a way to demonstrate to the readers why
the poem is said not as Prufrock would do but what he would have said if he, like Dante, were to
come back from another location. In this position, which is connected in this poetic form,
Prufrock is able to identify and appreciate his insecurities and disadvantages.
Instead of a true love song, the readers think the poem more like a medium that shows the mind
and emotions of the poet. Although Prufrock makes an attempt to make the poem seem like a
romantic one, he miserably fails. The brief romance offers readers an opportunity or a window to
learn more about the broken mind of Prufrock. To provide a window into Prufrock's shy, egoistic
and paralyzed personality, metaphors, imagery as well as the choice of words are used.
In the poem, Eliot employs the metaphor of a cat. By nature, cat is less sociable than dogs,
generally known as the best friend of man. In the other side, much of the time, the cat sticks to
itself. The picture of the cat therefore runs parallel to the character of Prufrock, who has trouble
socializing with others, particularly folk women.
The use of words by Eliot also helps to explain the essence of Prufrock when referring to the
expressions "yellow fog" and "yellow smoke." The "yellow color refers to cowardice. Smoke
and fog are typically a kind of hindrance that keeps a human from going on. This word illustrates
Prufrock's mind in the poem, which is loaded or clouded with negative feelings such as
cowardice, anxiety, loneliness that keeps him from going on in life.

2. The crab metaphor in the poem reveals his selfish side on the other side of Prufrock, which is
well explained in the following lines: "I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling
across the silent seas floors." The silent sea imagery reveals the vast mind of Prufrock who wants
to stay alone and wants to escape from the real world. So, the whole poem weighing in his head
about Prufrock, whether or not to talk to the lady. As a consequence, in this poem, questions
abound: there are overwhelming questions, dropped questions, questions about what the writer
assumes or dares to do.
In the early 1900s, the poem portrays a traditional western man and his thoughts that ask
concerns about his place in society. The poem's action circles completely around the speaker,
who walks through the city aimlessly, with his mind concerned with the memories of his
childhood. This metropolitan man is full of feelings of loneliness, anxiety that has left him
powerless in his life to make and take decisions.
His physical and psychological inertia stopped him from seizing different possibilities of his life
and his general well-being was influenced by the lack of moral development. Moreover, the
memories of unattained carnal loves still frustrate him. The poet, Prufrock, appears in the poem
to discuss a possible lover with whom he wishes to consummate. But he is attacked at the same
time with the feeling of anxiety that curbs or forbids him from taking the risk of meeting the
potential lover. His mind is full of fear and obsession and hallucinates that like his physical
presence, other individuals are making fun of his inadequacies. He scolds himself for dreaming
about all sorts of risk-taking ideas as a result.
At this point, Eliot lets the mind of Prufrock meander to a collection of reasonably concrete
physical environments such as the cityscape to the different interiors at the social meeting, such
as the women's lamp guns, fireplaces, coffee spoon. Again, the imagination of Prufrock flies and
presents a series of vague pictures of the ocean that illustrate the emotional detachment of the
speaker from the universe. Prufrock claims that he is regarded by this environment as a second-
rate position defined in the words "I am not Prince Hamlet."
One of the prominent lines in the poem that sums up this literary piece's very meaning is this:
"I've measured my life in coffee spoons," which sets the poem's tone. In the least ineffective
instrument to calculate his mundane and unremarkable life, the picture of the coffee spoons
conveys how the narrator looks back and accesses his life. Prufrock is the embodiment of the
common man, who is represented with dashed ambitions and modern disillusionment, of
dissatisfaction and impotence. In contemporary literature, Prufrock speaks for those voices that
are the victims of Emotions of weariness, longing, humiliation, dissatisfaction, sexual discontent,
emasculation, a feeling of decay and a knowledge of morals are concealed and unexplored.