“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
By: T. S. Eliot
The poem by T.S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a dramatic monologue written in 1915. Close to the end of the poem Mr. Prufrock stated “It is impossible to say just what I mean” (104). This statement will be analyzed to discover the hidden connotation of this phrase and convey the speaker’s ultimate goal. The questions that will be answered are: What does Prufrock mean when stating “It is impossible to say just what I mean” (104)? Is this statement stated due to a lack of vocabulary, words cannot convey his actual emotions, or is he just unable to express his own emotions to the listener? Are there other underlying circumstances to cause Prufrock not to speak his mind? By the end these questions will be understood along with the true…
This is seen a lot throughout time even in our own very recent time frame. This is a statement from Maria Shelton whose daughter is a lesbian and was afraid to tell people at work for reprisal, “After a period of being scared that her colleagues would find out, she decided to publicly acknowledge that her daughter was homosexual. She suggests that educators should be among the first to demonstrate compassion and acceptance of people’s differences and among the first to use knowledge and insight to eradicate prejudice and fear” (Shelton). Another theory of Prufrock’s fear of rejection is that the listener is a prostitute and again he is still scared of what others think of him and he feels it is wrong to love a promiscuous woman. This thought of prostitutes being horrible people is seen throughout many societies. This is a quote from a Japanese writer after they abolished prostitution “people believed that prostitutes were the victims of a thoroughly rotten old society that was the result of a reactionary government”…
