In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot, Prufrock is a man who is emotionally in conflict with himself . Although Prufrock is getting older, he feels the need to attract women but is afraid of being rejected or having an unstable relationship like in the past. Prufrock shows that he is very concerned about his physical deterioration even though he is not afraid of death. He also thinks that people in his neighborhood judge him and gossip about him, which makes him distant from the outside. Therefore, Prufrock's loveless life, isolation and low self-esteem can be linked to the following three symbols: mermaids, baldness and the eternal footman. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayT.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" begins with an epigraph from Dante's Inferno. Translated, he says: "If I thought to speak/ to someone who would return to the world,/ this flame would no longer tremble./ But since no one has ever/ returned alive from this place, if what I is true, I answer you without fear of infamy. In this case, the speaker will only tell his story knowing that living ears will never hear it. Eliot's Prufrock faces the same situation; he has a story to tell – a love song to sing – that he has not dared to tell to the living. Only now, where no one can hear him, can Prufrock finally declare what cannot be said. He was condemned to a kind of hell by his inaction. This hell is projected under a yellow light. Images of yellow invading the landscape abound: “The yellow fog that rubs its back against the windows, the yellow smoke that rubs its back against the windows”. Yellow is a color associated with cowardice. Fittingly, Prufrock's world is cast in this yellow light because his world is one of cowardice. His inability to express his feelings and fear of the implications it might have has confined him to where he is. Essentially, Prufrock proved himself to be a coward. This prison is a prison for cowards. If Prufrock had sung the song he intended to sing, he wouldn't be in hell. Still, it appears Prufrock had planned to make his statement. He had always intended to say what was tormenting him. He seemed to feel that he had all the time in the world to act on his feelings: And indeed, there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides down the street... There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to the faces you meet; There will be time for murder and creation, And time for all the works and all the days of the hands... Time for you and time for me, And time still for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before have some toast and tea. (22-34) Prufrock's time to act was limited, but he didn't know it. He thought time would be unlimited (“There will be time, there will be time”), and he discovered that this was not the case. The tragedy is that now that Prufrock is finally speaking his mind, his words will nevertheless remain unheard. He has all the time he needs now, but his real time is over. He can't talk to the woman he loves. He can only speak into a great void, certain of not being heard. The stanza mentioned in the previous paragraph illustrates Prufrock's constant inner turmoil. He must “prepare a face to meet the faces” he meets, for he cannot simply be what he is. Just “having toast and tea” requires “a hundred indecisions” and “a hundred visions and revisions.” He is so repressed that tea is a major ordeal. It is clearthat the actions of daily life cause great upheaval in Prufrock. He doesn't know how to act and doesn't know how to say what he wants to say. Each word is thought over and analyzed a hundred times in his mind. He is paralyzed by the fear of social criticism: And I have already known the eyes, I have known them all – The eyes that stare at you in a formulated sentence, And when I am formulated, smeared on a pin, When I am pinned and writhing on the wall, So how do I begin to spit out all the bits of my days and my ways? And how should I assume? (54-61) The image of Prufrock “pinned and writhing on the wall” creates an image of him totally exposed and exposed. It looks very much like a specimen prepared for dissection. When exposed, he is vulnerable to criticism from his peers. The eyes Prufrock speaks of are their eyes. Thus, we see that simply functioning in the social world puts Prufrock in a state of extreme distress. He doesn't know how to act and fears being exposed. It's no wonder he has difficulty declaring his romantic feelings to a woman. This is the question that ultimately overwhelms Prufrock: the question of love. This question is presented in the first stanza: "Streets that follow one another like a tedious argument/Of insidious intent/To lead you to a damning question.../Oh, don't ask: 'What is it?' East ?' » (8-10). This “shattering question” haunts the rest of the poem. The way the sentence ends after “To lead you to an overwhelming question…” implies that this is a loaded question, one that is not easy to answer. Love could have served as a paradise for Prufrock, or even a kind of paradise. Yet he chose to abandon heaven for hell. Why anyone would do such a thing is a question that is difficult to answer easily. Prufrock spends the entire poem trying to explain this. Besides the question of why Prufrock let love slip away from him, there is the question of what might have happened if he had actually expressed his feelings. It was this question that ultimately stopped Prufrock from taking action. The fear of what could have happened was just too great. “And would it have been worth it after all?” (86) Prufrock asks repeatedly. He doesn't know how to express himself eloquently: "It's impossible to say exactly what I want to say!" » (104). He imagines the possible consequences of his declaration of love: Would it have been worth it if someone, putting down a pillow or throwing a shawl, and turning to the window, said: “That's not it at all , that's not what I meant, not at all. (106-110) Prufrock fears that if he truly expressed how he felt, he would be misunderstood or, worse, rejected. This is the fear expressed in “That’s not at all what I meant.” He runs the risk of loving this woman and not being loved in return. Would it be worth taking the risk of declaring your love – “Was it worth it?” Prufrock will never truly know the answer to that question. The poem reaches its climax of sorts at the stanza discussed in the previous paragraph. Until then, the poem focuses on Prufrock's deliberations and hypothetical questions. He contemplates what could have been: “Would it have been worth it, / To have bitten matter with a smile, / To have turned the universe into a ball…” (90-92). He also rationalizes his current situation: "For I have already known them all, I have known them all-/I have known the evenings, the mornings, the afternoons,/I have measured my life with teaspoons » (49-51). All these thoughts lead to his ultimate question: the question of love. The poem culminates with Prufrock's greatest fear: that he must say what he,.