J Alfred Prufrock Gender Roles

Thomas Stearns Eliot is one of the most influential, well known writers of the 20th century. Throughout his career, he was very involved in many aspects of writing. He was a literary critic and he also wrote poems and plays. One of his most popular poems, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is about an insecure man who realizes his time to find a lover is almost up. Eliot also wrote “The Waste Land” which explains the psychological trauma many people experienced after World War II. In each of these works, Eliot displays a common idea that the nature of gender roles are changing. Eliot lived in a time period where women were becoming more prominent members of society with more freedom to do what they wanted. This change in society was reflected

Alfred Prufrock,” Eliot uses theme of woman empowerment to portray the message that the nature of gender roles are changing. The poem depicts the feelings of emasculation experienced by many men when they returned home from World War I. In the poem, the character, Prufrock, unable to make a decision, watches women wander in and out of a room, “talking of Michelangelo” (line 14), and admires their bare arms. Here, women have the freedom to choose what they want to do and how to live their lives, and Prufrock is confused about how to react. He feels emasculated by this women and her new power. Langdon Hammer writes that, “'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' is read, with emphasis on the poem's resistance to traditional forms and its complicated depiction of its speaker's fragmentary consciousness." Hammer shows how the poem challenges tradition by giving women a new and more independent role in society (Poetry for Students 110). It portrays how the speaker is confused by this new sense of independence and confidence that women hold when he comes home. The nature of gender roles are changing by empowering women and leaving men with everything being

Eliot writes, “I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs, Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest” (lines 228-229). Here Tiresias can see the true nature of the world, where man and women somehow merged and shifted gender roles. Tiresias symbolizes how Modernist writers created gay and lesbian characters and re-imagined masculinity and femininity. Ryan D. Poquette states, “Society has become too stale and exists in a state of living death…” (Poetry for Students 261), because society is so traditional and stale, Tiresias’ character challenges old ways of thinking by bringing together the two genders and creating an influential character. Eliot attempts to shake up society and present something new. This portrays the changing nature of gender roles because it sends the message of gender equality and how women are equal, not inferior, to