An Explication of Possibly the Best Poem Ever (The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock)

The speaker in “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” takes the reader through his existential crisis using repetition, juxtapositions, and a strange, ethereal tone to make his point clear. Recurring motifs in the narrator’s train of thought include mentions of his own mortality and his subsequent efforts to confront or avoid it, the “overwhelming question” which he returns to over and over again, and the oddly flat, well-appointed world from which he speaks. The speaker questions repeatedly throughout the piece “whether it would have been worth it, after all” to ask a particular “overwhelming question” which, we are led to believe, could have changed the course of his life. It’s possible that this question relates to a romantic relationship, given its proximity to the speaker’s rumination on women and his fear that a particular woman would misinterpret the question, were he to actually ask it. The frequent recurrence of this question underscores its status in the narrator’s mind and serves to heighten the feeling of obsession over a road not taken in his life. Additionally, Eliot contrasts the speaker’s luxurious surroundings with the raw, desolate tone in which he conveys his train of thought. Amidst impressive material comfort, he wonders, “Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,/Would it have been worth while… To have squeezed the universe into a ball /To roll it towards some overwhelming question...” In a single sentence, Prufrock jumps from his immediate (very comfortable) environment straight into a dark abyss of existential despair.


The hazy, pastel-like tone of Eliot’s language throughout the poem underscores the wavering, surreal feel of a mental tailspin as the narrator finds himself more and more removed from reality, even as he sits in great material plenty. Tea, toast, and coffee spoons abound as he tumbles deeper into his mental ordeal; he wonders, “Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,/Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?” These words have a dreamlike, ethereal quality and communicate the surreality and prison-like feeling of Prufrock’s situation. He continues on to describe the “mermaids” that he is seemingly able to observe from his same parlor perch in entirely matter-of-fact, commonplace language. This also serves to heighten the sadness inherent in the final phase of the poem, where he says very simply, “I do not think they will sing to me.” The sense of acceptance and resignment completes the overall feel of meaninglessness that the narrator seems to be experiencing. The sudden simplicity of the words bring the poem down to earth and even forces the reader to feel some sympathy for him.