The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock Essay
Love is a popular topic many people claim to have knowledge and understanding of. However, is it actually a matter to figure out? Many have different interpretations of what true love is and how it is gained, felt, and shown. Such as in, T.S. Eliot’s, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a poem about a middle-aged and over privileged man who suffers from social anxiety causing him to constantly pity himself as well as be surprisingly self conscious when about to approach women. In the famous William Shakespeare’s hundreds of sonnets, he describes his love in two different topics of passionate love and the other in a dark manner. For example, in Shakespeare’s, “Sonnet 130” there is a depiction of a hideous woman who he labels his mistress,
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There is the idea that if one does not love oneself, one cannot reciprocate their feelings to another person. T.S. Eliot demonstrates the situation of a man who does not love themselves in, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The title itself is ironic, teasing the man who in reality cannot find love as a result of his strong disliking towards himself. The poem is based on a question Prufrock wishes to ask the listener, most likely a woman he admires, starting with, “Let us go then, you and I” but unfortunately never does convince himself to do so. Readers learn that Prufrock is self conscious as he reasons, “There will be time, there will be time/ To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.” Before going outside he needs to put on either a different persona or create a mask for himself for others to see. Throughout the poem he is hesitant and puts himself in situations that allow him to overthink and overanalyze what the possible outcome is by constantly asking himself, “And should I then presume?/ And how should I begin?” Prufrock is completely insecure and filled with anxiety that he does not allow himself to take make a “risky” approach and simply ask his question to his lover, that could be questioning her love for him,
There is the idea that if one does not love oneself, one cannot reciprocate their feelings to another person. T.S. Eliot demonstrates the situation of a man who does not love themselves in, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The title itself is ironic, teasing the man who in reality cannot find love as a result of his strong disliking towards himself. The poem is based on a question Prufrock wishes to ask the listener, most likely a woman he admires, starting with, “Let us go then, you and I” but unfortunately never does convince himself to do so. Readers learn that Prufrock is self conscious as he reasons, “There will be time, there will be time/ To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.” Before going outside he needs to put on either a different persona or create a mask for himself for others to see. Throughout the poem he is hesitant and puts himself in situations that allow him to overthink and overanalyze what the possible outcome is by constantly asking himself, “And should I then presume?/ And how should I begin?” Prufrock is completely insecure and filled with anxiety that he does not allow himself to take make a “risky” approach and simply ask his question to his lover, that could be questioning her love for him,