If you’ll check the member feed, you’ll find @KentForrester’s excellent analysis of T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece of the poetic form “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I’m an American literature teacher myself, so I was quite excited to see literary criticism on Ricochet, so I quickly read the post. Kent makes some excellent points about the source material. However, there are some points within the poem where I have rather profound disagreements regarding his interpretation of the poem. Rather than clutter up his comments section with an abbreviated counter-criticism, I offer the readers of Ricochet one of my own. I hope you enjoy both pieces.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

“If I thought that my reply were given to anyone who might return to the world, this flame would stand forever still; but since never from this deep place has anyone returned alive, if what I hear is true, without fear of infamy I answer thee.”

Before we begin, we should first look at the prescript of the poem, where Eliot employs one of his first allusions–Dante. From The Inferno, we find Dante speaking with a living flame in hell. The flame tells Dante that, normally, he would tell anyone his story because of shameful acts that put him here. But, since no one leaves hell alive, the flame feels comfortable to Dante, who the flame believes is just as trapped as he is. Remember this as the poem proceeds.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

Here I have my first departure from Kent, who asserts that Prufrock was from a middle-class background. Close reading of the text reveals quite the opposite. Prufrock begins his journey from the slums, “half-deserted” streets full of muttering men, prostitutes (one-night cheap hotels), and restaurants with oyster-shells to make the vomit less slippery. This is the oldest part of an old European city, with narrow, crooked streets built before the advent of automobiles. For Prufrock, this is home. But where, exactly is he going? What question does he not want us to ask?

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

Eliot instantly transports us across town, to an undisclosed room. This is where Prufrock is going. A room on the other side of town, a part of town populated by perfume, soirees, and conversations about high art and culture. But why is he going there? What question must be asked?

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

Back in the red-light district, Eliot draws our attention to Prufrock’s environment, the grimy, yellow fog draping the industrial buildings all around him. In the form of a cat, Eliot anthropomorphizes the yellow fog as a looming presence over the whole scene.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Here we get our first glimpse at Prufrock’s personality: cautious to the point of paralysis, indecisive, weak.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The women still await Prufrock, on the other side of town.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Here we get a more complete picture of Prufrock the man. From his painful self-consciousness (the fear that the uptown women will mock his thin legs and balding head) to his euphemisms to hide his relative poverty (calling his necktie “modest” instead of cheap). Prufrock is so consumed by self-doubt that he feels that the very act of going across town to ask this question is at odds with the natural order of the universe.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

I lump these three stanzas together because they all point toward Prufrock’s tendency toward self-destructive metacognition, to over-analyze his future, and assume the worst possible outcome. In his mind, these women have already scrutinized him and found him wanting.  The pivotal line, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” speaks to Prufrock being a prisoner in his own self-doubt. He doesn’t live life; he merely measures out each day until death.

.      .      .      .      .      .      .      .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Should I tell the truth? Seriously? What would they think? I am not worthy of this room or these people; I am a crustacean [paging Jordan Peterson] curling my tail beneath me on the bottom of the ocean.

.      .      .      .      .      .      .      .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

This is a chronically misunderstood stanza. First of all, it functions as something of a daydream. Prufrock has already chosen to not ask the question (the nature of that question is still unclear), yet he imagines what life would be like if he had been like if he’d had the strength to see it to the end (smoothed by long fingers). Unfortunately, his strength abandons him. (Note the subtle nod to John the Baptist).

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”

Again, we see Prufrock’s staggering regret that he was unable to summon the courage to ask the question. He alludes to Lazarus, the man that was able to defy all odds, but at some level, Prufrock knows he is no hero. We also get our first real concrete hint at the nature of the question: “That’s not what I meant at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

And now the cat is out of the bag. “The Sunsets, dooryards, teacups, and skirts that trail along the floor all allude to marriage. Now we know what the question was. Prufrock, a poor guy from the wrong side of the tracks, is in love with girl from the nice side of town. He wants to propose, but the fear of rejection–not just rejection but humiliation–keeps him from even asking the question. At this point, the poem (and to a great extent Prufrock’s life) is essentially over. What comes next is a different poem, the ravings of an old man that failed in his greatest mission.

.      .      .      .      .      .      .      .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

Prufrock has come to grips with the fact that he is a bit player in the grand drama of life. He’s not Hamlet, a man of action that puts it on the line to chase the best of all possible results. No, he’s Polonius, or worse yet, Yorick: dead and forgotten.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

This is perhaps the most painful thing to read in all of western literature. Prufrock is so terrified of living that he doubts whether or not he is able to withstand the full flavor of a peach. He turns perfunctory, rote tasks into life or death choices. Truly sad. Weak. Low-energy.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

The “wind blows the water white and black” line clearly implies the aging process. Prufrock is, without a doubt, an old man by the end of the poem.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

To me, this is the most interesting stanza in the poem. Note how the point of view suddenly shifts. For the vast majority of the poem, Prufrock spoke exclusively about himself, even if you were along for the ride. Now, he’s switched to the plural first-person pronoun (we). Why? The reason is that this journey, from hope, to self-doubt, and ending in destruction is a journey that Western Civilization is on. Eliot very much believed that the fate of our society tied in our willingness to ask tough questions and see them through. Thus, Prufrock has actually been talking not about himself but about the very fate of our culture.

That’s why he’s willing to tell you this story. Remember the prescript? The flame was willing to talk to Dante because they were both in hell. Prufrock is in his own little hell, but you and I are right there with him. But we have “lingered” in this state of self-doubt and shame for so long that we don’t even notice the flames. That is, until “human voices wake us.” Then the flames become all too real.