“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.” once observed T.S. Eliot. Eliot considers reading poetry a way to measure one’s marrow when one spends much of their time avoiding themselves. While considering Eliot’s, quote readers of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock may be compelled to find a bit of themselves in the indecisive speaker. Eliot uses compelling literary devices and purposeful word choice to portray the theme of indecisiveness within the speaker in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The speaker in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock uses apprehensive and lonely tones to help portray the theme of indecisiveness. The tone of the poem helps illustrate the theme because apprehensiveness and loneliness are typical of individuals that are indecisive and fear judgment. For example, the speaker conveys his apprehensiveness with phrases such as, “There will be time, there will be time.” (stanza 4) and, “Do I dare/ Disturb the universe?”(stanza 6). These lines have an apprehensive tone because the speaker uses phrases that convey a sense of anxiety when read. In addition, the speaker uses a lonely tone in phrases like, “I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each./I do not think that they will sing to me.” (stanzas 18 and 19). This particular …show more content…
The color yellow is a symbol of cowardice. The speaker uses phrases like, “rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,/licked its tongue into the corners of the evening” and “Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap.” to personify the yellow fog as a cowardly large cat that is slinking through the town and covering it in cowardice. The fog enhances the theme of the poem because the speaker uses it as a metaphor for the indecisiveness slinking itself across the