The Theme of The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock

外国语学院 092班 黄洁 09131214 The Theme of The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock The poem “The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock” was written by Thomas Stearns Eliot who has been one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. This poem,one of the earliest of T.S.Eliot's major works, was completed in 1910 or 1911 but not published until 1915 which was one of the T.S.Eliot’s most striking achievement. The themes of this poem are manifold and various, and it can be described from many aspects. Maybe from the title ,you think it was a happy love song, but whether it is true?

With its regret, embarrassment, longing, sexual frustration, sense of decay, and awareness of mortality, Prufrock has become one of the most recognized voices in modern literature and is the quintessential urban zeitgeist of the 20th century. J.Alfred Prufrock was the protagonist of the poem who lived in a both physically and spiritually bleak environment. Throughout the poem, he told us what his thought was and what the world looked like.

We can get the theme of the poem by analyzing Prufrock’ psychological journey. From the beginning to the end of s the poem, Prufrock experiences a complicated psychological journey and seven mental changes. Firstly,we can see Prufrock’ indecisions and delays because in his mind ,he thought there woule be a lot of time.In T.S. Eliot's the love song of J.Alfred Prufrock, from the very beginning to the end, Prufrock was hesitaing whether he should go to the party to meet the beautiful lady who he seemed to covet for.He was constantly asking himself the question “ Do I dare or would have been worth while…”showing his fear and excuse for his delay in talking action.Besides, he resisted making decisions for fear that their outcomes would turn out wrong.

Secondly,a sense of his own inadequacy and unimportance can be easily perceived by people.In the whole poem,he was imagining meeting with the one who he loved and asking himself to do it by his interior monologue. However,he was afraid of judgement about him by other people. Prufrock continually worried that he would make a fool of himself and that people would ridicule him for his clothes, his bald spot, and his overall physical appearance. Thirdly, we can feel the loneliness and alienation. Prufrock is a pathetic man whose anxieties and obsessions have isolated him.Fourthly,we just see his pessimism, but not an optimistic one. He saw only the negative side of his own life and the lives

of others,not his and other people’s advantages and good qualities that could attract others.Maybe it was one factor that he had no confidence to show and express his love to that lady.

From this unique and imaginative poem, we can see T.S.Eliot gave the readers pictureseque features of the man “Prufrock”.What’s more, we were deeply impressed by his love. He saw at the possible loves, joys, companionship and heroism. Yet, it was very difficult for him to act on desires. Equally, this phenomenon existed in this modern society and puzzled many people.