The love song

T.S Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is one man’s response to death or someone talking to someone else who is dying for the intro.  The translation of the intro is someone talking to someone else that is about to enter the abyss, since they aren’t coming back.  As for the poem it’s self, it seems to be about a man longing for a relationship.  (Which is about half the guys in college?)  There a line that is repeated through the “stream of consciousness” poem that says “In the room the women come and go, Talking about Michelangelo”.  It seems that the narrator is in his apartment complex, a setting that seems familiar to him.  The narrator describes what is outside, which is a fog that seems to cover all over the city.  Many thought go thorug his head, such as how to prepare his face to meet other faces.  He has a lot of time, time for decisions not to be made, time for visions of what could have been if he had tried.  His insecurities feed into his indecision, asking himself “Do I Dare? Do I Dare?”  He worries about his thinning hair and his attire.  He knows the body of the women that pass by, but can’t approach them.  In the end he is his own worst enemy, he will destroy himself before he even has a chance.

     The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is the thought process of every insecure guy ever born.  But it specifically is the thought process of a middle age man that can’t build up the courage to talk to  women.  Since it is stream of consciousness, the poem comes off as jumbled, but focused on a main topic.  He over thinks every possible interaction that he could possibly have.  Instead of talking to women he plans things, lines 122 and 123 give that feeling.  “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare eat a peach” Even an action that doesn’t concern women is concerning to him.  He is afraid of his own word “It’s impossible to say what I mean”. Line 84 says “I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker” makes the reader aware that the narrator is aware of his own short comings, he admits that he is afraid.  In a way this is a very introverted man.  If it wasn’t for the fact that his hair was described as thinning, then the reader could have mistaken the narrator for a teenage boy who is trying to find his way.  You have to wonder if it has always been like this for him or did some event happen to him to turn him to this personality?