Zach Kaiser, Ethan Eschbach, Oliver Deng, Tristan Grieme

Ms. McMillan

APEL: Period 5

9 January 2020

Prufrock Assignment

1. Completed

2. a. After rereading “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” I noticed that the poem is in

fact very sexual. The beginning of the poem talks about yellow smoke and its rather

interesting behavior. The poem does reflect mental illness in a way that displays Alfred

Prufrock's sexual frustrations and struggle. Despite Prufrock’s sexual frustration, one can

relate this poem to a person in the modern day frustrated in finding true love.

b. Eliot deals with gender, class, education and intellect by detailing his character’s

various insecurities in these areas. Eliot appears to be unhappy with his characteristics in

these areas, referring to his shortcomings and the ways he is unhappy with himself. If I

had to describe Prufrock physically, I would say he is a tall, thin man who is past his

prime, but not old. As described, he is balding, and not particularly well-built, and he

most likely walks with a slouch and speaks quietly, as if afraid to disturb the one he is

talking to. As for his biggest flaws, Prufrock has no confidence, and is ill-adjusted to the

social party life he finds in the world he inhabits. He struggles to accurately express his

emotions, and he comes across as timid and awkward in regular conversation. Prufrock is

a broken man.

3. a. I believe that Eliot called this a love song because it describes the sexual life of

Prufrock and his depressing stories of his past failed relationships and the many
insecurities of his life. This poem is different from the usual love song because of the

many modernist ideas which depict his emotions as physical objects. This is much

different from traditional Shakespearean writings about love because traditional works

often straightforward and have a linear thought process.

b. This poem has been most likely described as a reflection of spiritual emptiness and

emotional paralysis, since the main character of this poem, Alfred Prufrock, is spiritually

empty and saddened by the fact that he can no longer express himself in an appealing

manner to a woman. I believe that this poem is only partially a depiction of modern life,

sure some people are in the same shoes as Alfred Prufrock, however when applying this

poem to the majority of people it only appeals to them in the parts where Prufrock is

struggling to find true love. In general, this poem was a lot more effective in the 1920s

than in the twenty first century simply because this poem describes a soldiers experiences

in modern society after the war. War today is no longer a major problem, therefore

making this poem less appealing and effective to the modern american people.

c. “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” reflects the many tenets of modernism, such as

the thoughts of the lost generation, which were very discombobulated, and many of his

ideas were expressed in strange ways such as the description of fog pressing up against a

window. The entire poem also displayed the idea of pessimism with Eliot describing

Prufrock in a very depressing manner while strongly indicating that he is not able to get

in to a relationship. He seemed like a very lost person and did not have faith that he

would ever find love.

4. b. Allusions are effective literary devices due to their ability to include mass amounts of

information in a single sentence through the referencing of a single text or literary work.

Being utilized by a Modernist writer, allusions are effective through their symbolic

meaning, a heavy theme in Modernist literature.

c. Through the internet, we were able to discover that Elliot’s poem was written in

Free-verse style, following no logical patterns or symmetrical aspects of poetry (other

than the couplet referencing Michaleangelo appearing twice). The poem also contains

small sections that are grouped together by other poetic devices, signifying a relationship

between those themes that appear. For example, around lines 30-40, Elliot includes

several loose rhymes meant to build on the reader’s understanding of Prufrock’s

personality. There are other rhyme groups, such as ones relating to the city or the

character’s mental issues. These groups add a faint sense of order, but random order, in a

poem meant to be erratic and hard to grasp and group.