T.S._Eliot

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a modernistic poem in the form of a staged or dramatic monologue. A dramatic monologue presents a moment in which a narrator/speaker discusses a topic and, in so doing, discloses his personal feelings to a listener. Only the narrator talks thus the term monologue, which means “single communication”. During his dialogue/communication, the speaker somehow, intentionally and unintentionally reveals information about himself. The main focus of a dramatic monologue is this personal information, not the speaker's topic. A dramatic monologue is a type of character study. Modernism is a cultural movement which rebelled against Victorian customs. Victorian culture emphasized nationalism and cultural absolutism. Victorians placed humans over and outside of nature. They believed in a single way of looking at the world, and in absolute and clear-cut dichotomies between right and wrong, good and bad, and hero and villain. In contrast, Modernists rebelled against Victorian ideals. They blamed Victorianism for such evils as slavery, racism, and imperialism. Modernists emphasized humanism over nationalism, and argued for cultural relativism. Modernists emphasized the ways in which humans were part of and responsible to nature. They argued for multiple ways of looking at the world, and blurred the Victorian dichotomies by presenting antiheroes, and anti-art movements. The character or speaker, “J. Alfred Prufrock” in T.S. Eliot’s poem, centers on a balding, insecure middle-aged man. He expresses his thoughts about the dull, uneventful, mediocre life he leads as a result of his feelings of inadequacy and his fear of making decisions. Unable to seize opportunities or take risks. He lives in a world that is the same today as it was yesterday and will be the same tomorrow as it is today. He does try to make progress or evolve, but his timidity and fear of failure stalls him from taking action. He escorts his silent listener (an unidentified companion who could also be Prufrock's inner self that, nudges him but fails to move him to action, to change), through streets in a shabby part of a city, past cheap hotels and restaurants, to a social gathering where women he would like to meet are conversing. However, he is hesitant to take part in the activity for fear of making a fool of himself.