Poetry Analysis Essay on Images of Hope in Alfred Prufrock in 'The Love Song' by T.S.Eliot

Introduction

The relationship between T.S. Elliot works and Modernism creates the imagery of hope because it utilizes the characteristics of the modernist poetry. The author conveys essential elements of contemporary life to elaborate more on life's natural reality in the lives of the narrator and the characters at large. Several modernism properties such as real correlation, irregular rhyming, free verse, and fragmentations were also used in the text to show how Eliot's works mark the literary shift of poetry from the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Romanticism was first embraced in the modernist poetry. Eliot's begins first by talking about a timid man (Prufrock) who was very shy to express his loving feelings throughout the story. This is why the title was regarded as ironing because 'The Love Song' initially meant that Prufrock was always attracted to women. This paper will portray how Eliot's writing falls in the zeitgeist in Modernism, exploring three literary devices of imagery, metaphor, and symbolism like coffee spoons, mermaids, and women who come and go.

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The complexity and psychology behind Eliot's line was to decline the traditional perspective of love life to more complicated relationships that pose a great dilemma in the civilization era of Modernism. Images, metaphors, and symbols are used in the text to make direct replacement of certain statements as well as to give the audience a clearer picture of the writer's intentions. The different metaphoric or symbolic representation in the text also offers more psychological appeal to the contextual understanding of their use more than the grammatical request.

Images and symbols of the coffee spoons in the poem were also used when Eliot said: "I I have used coffee spoons to measure my life..." (Eliot 51). The primary meaning of the imagery used in the phrase "coffee spoons" evokes a precision measure of Prufrock's life happiness. The symbolic use of coffee spoons also shows the allotment of his life aspects of uncertainties (Saleem 372). The "coffee spoons" phrase symbolizes the social rituals that the narrator despises as elements of life reality controversy. The use of coffee and tea during social situations demonstrates the socialization elements of the Modernism, and when the narrator talks about coffee spoons, she shows that his life is measurable in small quantities. With this imagery, the writer can portray the fragmentation and objection of reality.

Eliot also uses the image of mermaids to show the ocean life as a symbolic representation of the beautiful women who would not respond to his attention. Prufrock desire of love to the mermaids portrays how unreachable women in his life were. From his speech he even says that: "I heard the mermaids sing to each other." (Eliot 124). In this metaphoric representation, Prufrock tries to show how the women in his world ignored him (Napierkowski and Ruby 103). He used the imagery of sea life to show the instability of his emotional waves where he was not able to express himself to the women in his society because they either ignored him. Some of them were also unreachable like the mermaids in the ocean. The symbolic representation of mermaids creates a negative image, leaving no hope for the narrator to get the attention needed. While the author uses of the demonstration of the ocean life to symbolize Prufrock's frustrations, she also places the writing in the Modernism poetry, mainly when social life did not follow a natural order like in the preceding zeitgeists.

One example of imagery the author used to show the cruelty of life and the narrator's anger at the unfairness life was treating him was seen in the thirteen and fourteen lines when Eliot says; "inside the room, women came in and out discussing Michelangelo." (Eliot 13 - 14). The narrator, in this case, demonstrates his frustration by showing the motion of women coming and going to emphasize the repetition and sequential, causing boredom and humdrum. Prufrock also shows the continuous cycles of women who went into the urban area during the industrialization period. The context of the phrases shows a change of the Romanticism to the Modernism period due to the contrary views in Prufrock's life owing to the frustrations of meeting many women who do not show him any interest. The application of the new Modernism aspects of social life from urbanization shows a change of lifestyle when the narrator meets different traits of women than the traditional perspective he is previously familiar.

Conclusion

Eliot demonstrates the irregularity of poetry is shifting from the Romanticism to Modernism. The poem also shows the critics of Modernism on the destructiveness, but in the end, there is hope on things turning out as expected. However, the perspective displayed in the poem shows that the narrator could not find his luck in life and nothing seems to work in his favor. Using imagery and symbolism such as coffee spoons, mermaids, and women who came and went, made the metaphoric illustrations being part of the contribution of Modernism because it frustrated the narrator. In the strong destruction attributed by the three images, Prufrock borrows to vent his anger and frustration in life that changes with the evolution of time. It's only appropriate that the narrator's evolutionary ideologies follow a path to match the changing world than waiting for the reversal of time.

Works Cited

Eliot, T. S. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Poetry Magazine. Chicago: Poetry Foundation. Retrieved on 21st May 2018 from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock

Napierkowski, Marie Rose, and Mary Ruby, editors. Poetry for Students. Vol. 1, Gale, 1998, pp. 96-114. Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com.db11.linccweb.org/apps/pub/5LAM/GVRL?u=lincclin_hcc&sid=GVRL. Accessed 22 May 2018.

Saleem, Muhammad. "An analysis of deviations of register in T. S. Eliot's poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Language in India, Jan. 2012, p. 370-379. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.db11.linccweb.org/apps/doc/A277602524/AONE?u=lincclin_hcc&sid=AONE&xid=4e6922ed. Accessed 22 May 2018.