- Themes: loneliness, indecision, and love.
- Prufrock is a man whose anxieties have isolated him.
- He doesn’t make decisions because he fears that they will turn out wrong
- He talks about love and about women
- Voice: J. Alfred Prufrock is speaking the poem (persona)
- Tone: it does change throughout the poem because at one point, he talks about love for women, then talks about the days his hands did hard work.
- It also changes when he thinks about his dreams, and postponing events with a women— “ There will be time”
- Imagery: he tries to compare the streets to a cat, even though he doesn`t mention the cat at all.
- Uses the words: “muzzled”, “leap”, “tongue”, and “curl”
- Talks about meeting a person-”to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”
- He’s saying that you don’t go out to meet the face, you go out to meet the entire person
- The author uses “Prufrock” (Proof Rock) because it is meant to stand for anyone or everyone in these confusing times
- Structure: has different structural elements. They include: lines, rhyming couplets, and stanzas
- Rhythm: every other line seems to rhyme.
Time
- theres time to laugh
time to play
but some times
time just flies awaytheres time for life
time for death
but i need to follow
in there foot steps
and theres not alot
of time left
theres time for school
time for work
but wheres the time gone?
when your childeren
are all grown uptheres time
spent here
and there
time is everywherei’m running out of time
i just need a bit more
but time
just won’t streach- The Love Song J. Alfred Prufrock
- 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 - 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. - Comparing and Contrasting Explanation
- The poem The Love Song J.Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot (lines 19-35) and Time, by Natalia Anna Joelie share many common similarities. The easiest to point out is the main focus of both poems is regarding time. They both have to do with the different types of activities that can be done within time. For example in the poem The Love Song it talks about time to meet new people and in the poem Time it talks about time to play. Each poem refers to death in a diverse manner. Although both poems have many similarities there are many differentiations between the two poems. The Love Song is in great detail, where as the poem Time is simple and straight to the point. T.S. Eliot writes that there is plenty of time to do things. On the other hand, Time focuses on their not being enough time to get things done. It can be brought to attention that both poems share common things between one another and have their differences.
- The Love Song J. Alfred Prufrock – Paraphrased 19- 25
- Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, 19
- Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
- And seeing that it was a soft October night, 21
- Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. 22
- And indeed there will be time 23
- For the yellow smoke that falls along the street 24
- Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
- The Love Song J. Alfred Prufrock – Paraphrased 26 – 31
- Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
- There will be time, there will be time 26
- To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet, 27
- There will be time to murder and create, 28
- And time for all the works and days of hands 29
- That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
- Time for you and time for me, 31
- The Love Song J. Alfred Prufrock – Paraphrased 32 – 34
- And time yet for a hundred indecisions, 32
- And for a hundred visions and revisions, 33
- Before the taking of a toast and tea. 34
- Paraphrase lines 19-22
- The chimney’s ashes are falling on the back of a symbolic cat, as it prances about the house before curling up by the window and falling asleep. The cat is like the speaker in the poem, only the soot represents all the failures in his life (more specifically the failure at finding love), so to speak; He’s just allowing these failures to emerge back up from the depths of his memory, and so he decides to engulf himself in his own arms and essentially fall asleep without really making a decision on whether or not he should tackle his love life head on, or stay inactive.
- Paraphrase lines 23-34
- The speaker believes that he has time to do many things, like: get ready, and think and re-think things, and come up with many questions, but never any answers to those questions, he’ll have so much time that he can kill and create, and that he can dream and reminisce about his dreams with himself, he’ll have time to do practically whatever he wants. All before he settles down to have some toast and tea with a lady friend.
Compare to a Current/Social Event
- A current event that relates to the speakers thoughts and perceptions, would be the death of someone close. All over the world people are dying, and so a lot of people can relate to the fact that losing someone is hard. But, although some people may try to suppress their feelings or the memories of their lost loved ones, no matter how hard one tries, their loved one’s memory would eventually surface. And you can think and re-think things, and dream about other things, and plan things, etcetera, all before you sit down for a meal, but the fact of the matter is that there’s nothing that we can do to bring our loved ones back except to preserve their memory. This relates to this section of the poem because the speaker just allows his memories to flow back into his life, and there’s nothing he can do but to sit and except that he has done nothing with his love life, unless he decides to act on it. Although he thinks he has time to do all these things before tea, he may not have the time he thinks he has, you always have to live life like it’s your last day and the longer he procrastinates, the worse his love life’s situation may become
Course Theme
- The course Theme discovered from line 19 – 34 is social
- Example: “And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep” (Eliot 21 & 22). This shows that’s the narrator is influenced by the time of year it is, in addition to being influenced by the area he is walking through.
- Example: “And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea” (Eliot 32 & 33). From this quotation, it is fair to conclude he is reflecting on inner dreams and how he can revise those dreams to achieve his goals. He is also reflecting on decisions in the near future because the narrator talks about achieving his final vision before take of a toast and tea.
- Archetypes from lines 19 – 34
- The first archetype discussed in this poem from lines 19 – 34 is archetype situation
- Example: “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” (Eliot 27 – 31). In reference to this quotation, it is easy to see that he is pondering his thoughts on what he can do in his spare time. He lists the options and possibilities in this passage, however due to the dark atmosphere, he has a negative reflection on each option.
- Archetypes from lines 19-34 Continued
- The second archetype discussed in these lines is archetypal symbols
- “Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap” (Eliot 20). In reference to the quotation, he talks about making a leap. Previously discovered, we know that he seeks love, so therefore he could be comparing the leap from a terrace to the leap into a relationship.
- “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes … And seeing that it was a soft October night” (Eliot 15, 21). In relation to color from this quotation, we see the narrator uses a variety of color. This shows some confusion in a sense because he refers to October, which is an autumn month full of colors. The colors can symbolize how he feels, in a sense that there are many colors around him, which reflects on his emotions showing that he has very mixed emotions about love and how he will love again.
