Total and Prose Meaning of "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”

J. Alfred Prufrock lives inside his head. His fantasies throughout the poem deviate further away from reality as the poem goes on, beginning with the idea that he might simply interact with the women, then the daydream of a long relationship with one of the women, and finally a scene involving him swimming with the mermaids. With the final stanza, Prufrock reveals the gravity of these daydreams. The idea that he is fully submerged in “the chambers of the sea” heightens the feeling of being trapped inside his head. However, Prufrock does not paint this scene as an unpleasant one. In fact, his description of the mermaids is beautiful and peaceful—“sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown.” Thus, he acknowledges his separation from the real world and admits that his seclusion isn’t an unwanted one. In the final, haunting line, Prufrock is forced to face the contrast between his situation and reality, and he “dies,” for Prufrock lives only in his dreams and fantasies, and, when he is faced with reality, he dies (figuratively, that is). When he is shocked out of his contented dream, the force of the water—the realization of the isolation, stagnancy, and depression of his uneventful life—crushes him.

Now, I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself. Prufrock comes to this conclusion after just over 130 lines of internal monologue, written in a stream-of-consciousness style that make this insecure man even more vulnerable and transparent than he already is. As I said, he slowly drifts away from reality. He begins by asking an ambiguous other character (interpreted in this analysis as himself) to walk around a decrepit city, described with raw, even sexual imagery. (The evening is “spread out across the sky/like a patient etherized upon a table,” “restless nights” are spent in “cheap hotels,” and streets are like arguments with “insidious intent.”) At the end of the stanza, he says “Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”/Let us go and make our visit.” In this opening stanza, he appears to have a purpose (to visit the women), seems likely to fulfill that purpose (telling himself not to ask questions, but to simply act), and also seems to have a full grasp on reality (through his descriptions of highly tangible things). His imagery and diction is characteristic of a somewhat despondent, sexually inclined, normal man. In the next stanza, he compares the “yellow fog” in the city to a cat, rubbing itself against the buildings, “lick[ing] its tongue on the corners of the evening,” “lingering” in stagnant pools, and letting itself be dirtied by soot. While, yes, the metaphor is between the fog and the cat, the cat’s actions in fact mirror those of Prufrock. He wallows in the muck of his surroundings, he revels in the grimy puddles and smudged windowpanes, and then, with full understanding of his depressing surroundings, turns his back and falls asleep, to fester in his own passivity.

While I have yet to discuss the bulk of the poem, these first and last stanzas speak the most of Prufrock’s character and mental state. The middle stanzas are all very similar, all rebounding back to his passivity and dreaminess. This idea of him talking himself in a circle is reinforced by his repetition of the sentence “In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo.” He questions himself (against his own wishes, ironically) repeatedly as well, questions such as “Do I dare?” “How do I presume?” “Would it have been worth it?” that prove his uncertainty and insecurity. This insecurity is furthered with his awareness of his physical imperfections that hold him back from action as well. When he plans to triumphantly “descend the stair” he remembers his appearance, certain that the women will say “How his hair is growing thin!” and “But how his arms and legs are thin!” However, it is not only his insecurity that holds Prufrock captive to his own inactivity. He uses violent, gruesome imagery to depict his society’s reaction to him, saying they will pin him “sprawling…wriggling on the wall” and that his head will be “brought in on a platter.” He fears the harsh judgment of society and believes that they have grest power over him, his happiness, and his life. He even admits that he has “seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid.” On a literal level, he is afraid of death, but on a figurative (and perhaps more relevant) level, he is afraid of rejection, of social death.

Towards the end of his monologue, he says “I grow old… I grow old…” In this repeated phrase, the meaning of this poem comes clear. Life and time rushes by as he sits back and thinks, falling further and further away from reality, action, relationships, and experience. He is like the “lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows”—he only observes the world, never engages in it. In his last, desperate attempt to find life in his life, by eating peaches and rolling his trousers up, fantasy elements (the mermaids) find their way in, and the fact that he has no true, real escape from his musings becomes clear. If life is spent in watching, thinking, and musing, analyzing and questioning, life is not life at all. His insecurity and fear bind him like the chains of paralysis, locking him inside his own mind, never to experience, well, anything tangible at all.