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Alfred Prufrock Allusions

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What a shame it would be to never do certain things, but have all the time in the world to. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot, that’s just the case. This poem was written about a man looking back on his life. This man, J. Alfred Prufrock, seemingly regrets not doing things, such as finding love, while he still had the chance. Throughout the poem, Prufrock is hesitant about love because he wants something meaningful for himself. T.S. Eliot uses literary devices like allusion and imagery to not only express the meaning, but to build the plot vividly. It is mentioned several places throughout this poem that Prufrock will have time to do things. “Time for you and time for me and time yet for a hundred visions and revisions,” …show more content…

Alfred Prufrock has chosen not to do things, and to put things off, finding love is not something that he purposely avoids. It’s not because he doesn’t necessarily want it to happen, it was because it just didn’t happen. “But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) and brought upon a platter…” (line 81-83). This biblical allusion shows that he has hoped and prayed that he receives something more than just any general relationship. He wants something meaningful and special. To me, this is why he is so hesitant of finding love, because he is afraid that he will settle for something less than what a real relationship is supposed to be worth.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot is indeed a poem written with great intelligence. Using literary devices such as allusion and imagery helps express the true meaning with much detail and depth. From my understanding, J. Alfred Prufrock is a man that is full of regret, wishing that he would have actually done certain things while he had time, and wishing that he could have found love. What I have taken from this poem is definitely this, do things while there is still time, or look back and regret not doing

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In T.S. Eliot’s work “The LoveSong of J. Alfred Prufrock”, he uses diction to give an underlying meaning and tone to his poem in order to express the downfall of a man. The author uses his diction to give this poem Its tone as if he regrets what he did in life. He also shows great tone changes in this work, giving this poem a dramatic, almost tragic outlook. Many of his word choices also give his work an underlying meaning and adds to his theme and messages. A large part of his poem is also using metaphors to add to this underlying meaning and give more force to this tone he is trying to create.

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Alfred Prufrock are an echo of To His Coy Mistress’ “Let us roll all our strength and all / Our sweetness up into one ball” (41-42). Here an allusion is made to bring forth that contrast between the two characters. With only two lines, Eliot is able to draw a potent connection between the difference in the characters. The inclusion of this allusion can also be interpreted in a myriad of ways that is dependent on the reader and their understanding of the source alluded to. Eliot may not have wanted to address a certain issue directly so he shifted the responsibility of interpretation to the

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Nathaniel Hawthorne, a famous American author from the antebellum period, notices the emphasis on individual freedoms in the works by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalists during his residency in the Brook Farm’s community. In response to these ideas, Hawthorne writes The Scarlet Letter, a historical novel about Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s lives as they go through ignominy, penance, and deprecation from their Puritan community to express their strong love for each other. Their love, even though it is true, is not considered as holy nor pure because of Hester past marriage to Roger Chillingworth, and thus Hester gained the Scarlet Letter for being an adulterer. Hawthorne utilizes biblical allusions, such as the stories of

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Elliot simply used these allusions to tell his own story, sometimes giving new meanings to quotes, or adding emphasis to new words or phrases. Often, these references had to be understood themselves for a reader to truly know what was being said in one of Elliot’s works. One such work that contains so many references to past writers and works, is “The Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock”. The story of Prufrock is an intriguing one dominated by allusions and many references to earlier works of literature that Elliot himself read, and applied to a story of a modern man.

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The poem's theme of love and heartbreak is emphasized through the use of imagery, as well as showing how challenging it is to leave a relationship, even one that is toxic. By using imagery in the poem I am able to convey the theme of love and heartbreak in the poem as well as show how difficult it is to leave a relationship even if it's a toxic one. I use irony to show how people can hold onto unrealistic expectations and expect the impossible but ultimately receive nothing. This irony illustrates the issue of love and heartbreak and demonstrates how challenging it is to let go of unrealistic expectations when you are in love. The phrase "I really loved you, I gave you my whole heart"

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Because of that, he never brings up the courage to ask his life changing question that he wants to ask. The poet is afraid of rejection, stating his worst fear is his love telling him, "That is not it at all,/ That is not what I meant, at all. "(97-98) Prufrock ends up dying an old man, never having completed anything amazing and interesting in his life. Eliot's poem of this man, shows his distaste and hatred for others like this, as well as his fear for ending up as someone with a lot of regrets. He produced a lot of poetry and books during his time, and he was someone that did not want to live as Alfred Prufrock

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It is through this conceptual connection that Prufrock essentially accompanies the prostitute, the homeless person and the unidentified persona in Preludes as a witness to this recurrent suffering. Additionally, the unknown persona has also observed the lack of identity and spirituality in his own reality, where the common people are described as “masquerades” rushing “to early coffee stands” in the second prelude - the masquerades being metonymic of the facades that rob people of individual identity. Yet as Roger Mitchell writes of Eliot and the modernist poets that “they see the world and themselves with unflattering exactness” , they “cannot or will

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In the first stanza, we can already see how this poem can relate to the world today and how we feel about certain things. We as humans don't like change. Sometimes, we want something to happen so bad, that we don't consider how our life might change if this wish, this hope of something, actually happened. We sometimes may want something so bad, but fear what the consequences might be if something goes

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In T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” I believe Prufrock’s overwhelming question is a marriage proposal because of the severity of his indecisiveness and inner debate of whether or not to ask it. I also believe he does not ask this question because he is in self-denial of his indecisiveness, old, afraid of rejection, and wants to be sure of her answer before he asks the question. Prufrock does not reference marriage in this poem while determining whether or not to court the woman and ask the overwhelming question, so it is unclear if he means to ask the woman he is in love with to marry him or to go out with him. However, due to the severity of his indecisiveness and his constant excuses as discussed, I believe Prufrock treats the overwhelming question with high importance because of its risk. This high risk and importance are logical because if the question is a proposal, then the answer is serious and has the potential to be life-changing.

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Social Isolation and Loneliness Social isolation has become much more common in a society that constantly tries to stereotype us. The poems, “A Supermarket in California,” by Allen Ginsberg and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T.S. Eliot, display the way that loneliness is affecting people. In “A Supermarket in California” imagery is used heavily, while with “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” relies on personification to show the loneliness of isolation. Both poems use objects such as the lonely streets and night time to make the reader feel the isolation.

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