T.S. Eliot uses literary devices such as repetition, allusions, and imagery to characterize Prufrock as being lonely and socially anxious, while also being a procrastinator and having low self-esteem, which overall conveys his indecisiveness and inability to act on what he thinks is important. The first part of the poem from lines 1 to 23 illustrates Prufrock’s loneliness and isolation from the rest of society. T.S. Eliot begins the poem with an allusion to Dante’s Inferno. His epigraph is a quote spoken by Guido da Montefeltro, who tells Dante that he is only speaking to him because he thinks Dante is dead, and therefore will not have a chance to repeat his story to anyone else. Eliot might have chosen to use this quote as an epigraph because what Prufrock is about to confess to the reader is something that he does not want to be told to anyone else, and the reader won’t have a chance to tell anyone, perhaps because they are as isolated from others as …show more content…
Eliot alludes to Hamlet, but instead of comparing Prufrock to Hamlet, he is instead compared to an attendant lord, a side character whose only role is to “swell a progress” or “start a scene or two”. Prufrock does not even consider himself to be the main character of his own life. He instead compares himself to an unimportant, nameless side character. He even calls himself a fool in line 116, showing how he thinks he is unimportant and not worth anyone’s time. The imagery in lines 124 and 125 also illustrate this point. “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.” By using this imagery, Eliot really conveys just how unimportant Prufrock considers himself to be. He does not even think that mermaids, who sing to everyone, would sing to him. He does not think that he is worthy of their attention, even though they have given it to everyone