Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - Summary

The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock
Summary
The poem begins with an epigraph from Dante’s Inferno in which Guido
da Montefeltro, a resident of hell, explains he is willing to share his story
with his interlocutor because he knows that person will never be able to
return to the world and relay it to someone else.
The poem follows the fragmented consciousness of a middle-aged male
speaker, J. Alfred Prufrock, as he navigates fears and concerns about his
life and reflects upon his impotency and inability to create meaning for
himself in the modern world. The poem dips in and out of Prufrock’s
reflections and scenes of social anxiety he imagines for the reader.
In the first stanza, Prufrock begins with an invitation, asking the reader—
or perhaps addressing a different part of his own psyche—to go out
“through certain half-deserted streets” that “follow like a tedious
argument / of insidious intent/to lead you to an overwhelming question”
(Lines 4, 8, 10). The “overwhelming question” crops up in later sections
of the poem, and Prufrock never satisfactorily answers it.
The images in the first four stanzas describe a seedy, urban scene, with an
eerie “yellow fog” permeating the entire setting (Line 15). The speaker
exhibits concern about the “overwhelming question” and anxiety about
interacting with other humans. He describes scenes of fashionable women
going about the room, “talking of Michelangelo” and other fashionable,
elite topics, and expresses worry over how to present himself to other
“faces that you meet" (Lines 14, 27).
Prufrock is painfully self-aware, describing his aging body, and his sense
that others constantly watch and judge him. Disembodied voices enter the
poem, commenting on Prufrock’s thinning hair and physical appearance,
and these judgments paralyze him and prevent him from acting on any of
his desires. He recalls the banal details of his life, one that has been
“measured out […] with coffee spoons” (Line 51) in which nothing big or
meaningful has ever happened. He is “pinned and wriggling on the wall”
(Line 58) like a trapped insect, unable to escape his discomfort and
unable to move or act.
Halfway through the poem, the speaker imagines a romantic, sexualized
other, describing her “arms that are braceleted and white and bare” (Line
63). Prufrock is impotent in his approach to this figure, and to all female
figures in the poem, seized by not knowing “how [he should] begin”
(Line 69). He acknowledges his inability to communicate with this love
interest, claiming it would have been better for him to have been “a pair
of ragged claws / scuttling across the floors of silent seas” (Lines 73-74)
as he is incapable of forming a connection with her.
Prufrock spends several stanzas reflecting further on the meaninglessness
he experiences, drawing on Biblical allusions to John the Baptist and
Lazarus to emphasize his lowliness in comparison. Even the “eternal
Footman” (Line 85), or Death himself, snickers at Prufrock, finding him
pitiful.
Prufrock desperately desires to connect with the female love interest, or
with any human figure, but finds it impossible. He describes an effort to
tell her a personal story, to approach once more the “overwhelming
question,” only to hear her say “[t]hat is not what I meant at all; / that is
not it, at all” (Lines 97-98). Communication breaks down to the point
where Prufrock claims “It is impossible to say just what I mean!” (Line
104)
In the final movements of the poem, Prufrock compares himself not with
Hamlet—a literary figure famous for his indecision—but rather the Fool
in Hamlet’s court. Prufrock describes his aging, and reframes his earlier
question from “Do I dare disturb the universe?” to the measly “Do I dare
to eat a peach?” (Line 122) He imagines himself walking on a beach with
mermaids singing to each other but ignoring him. In the final stanza,
Prufrock describes these distant mermaids, drawing him out into the
“chambers of the sea” (Line 129), which become his deathbed.

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The Love Song of J.

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