In T. S. Eliot's poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,
published in 1917, Prufrock is an outsider. His movement within the
boundaries of city life is the hovering of a detached soul. He does not
identify with the world of 'cakes and ale and ices'; because he cannot.
The voices of his environment recede from him, and ultimately he
declares that he cannot hear the mermaids singing.
Prufrock's song opens with a peep into Dante's inferno
and goes on to enter a labyrinthine and misty landscape
where it seems the smog will smother him. As Sartre says, 'Hell is Other people'. And
despite all attempts, there is no escape. Prufrock tries
to wriggle out of his emotional void by singing his love
song, but love does not exist.
It is interesting to note the title of the book in which Prufrock was first published: Prufrock and other observations. Observations! The very word implies detachment. And this is more obvious because throughout the poem, Prufrock is never involved in the scenes he describes. His observations are objective:
In the room the women come and go
talking of Michelangelo.
Prufrock cannot escape from the hell around
him. And the closer Prufrock gets to the room where he
hopes for love and escape, the more he perceives
everything as fragmented and alien. There are eyes, arms
and severed heads. The love song cannot serve as a
romantic escape route, because the sense of wholeness
required cannot be found in a fragmented world. Prufrock's
very life is fragmented: it can be measured out in coffee
spoons. By the end of the poem there is an impression
that the 'you and I' are parts of the same person - one
looks on, as the other acts.
In Prufrock the selves are further sub-divided, even to the extent of non-existence, like in the dissection image in Prufrock:
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin
The outsider has no claim to a comprehension of
things in totality. Not even their own selves. In the
modern world uncertainty has replaced totality.
Prufrock at least can hope. Prufrock repeats 'There will be
time' because he believes that in time lies man's secret
power of creation and destruction; birth and death.
In the final analysis, Prufrock seems to waver in the hope he has
invested in time. It seems that the outsider in Prufrock
resurfaces with this faltering in conviction.
The semblance of hope that may have been
raised is extinguished suddenly.
Prufrock has the feeling of being drowned in the sea.
In Prufrock is a classic cases of the outsider, in whom there is a tortuous quest for truth, and detachment has been necessary to provide a viewpoint for what is truly real. But after its discovery, the truth is either dismissed or subverted. Prufrock is dissuaded from telling us everything;
If one, settling her pillow by her head,
Should say: 'That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.'
He refuses to lie. He refuses to indulge in what existentialism calls 'bad faith'. Prufrock's love song is truthful in that it cannot be a love song.
Prufrock suffers from the existential plight of indecision, asking,
So how should I presume?
. . . And how should I begin?
Escape from the hell
that surrounds him lies in a realization of the truth of existence. His fate therefore is tragic.
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Texts
Camus, Albert. The Outsider. English trans. by Joseph
Laredo. Penguin Classics.
Eliot, T. S. Selected Poetry. ed. Manju Jain. CULT.
Bibliography
Bush, Ronald. Eliot
Champigny, R. A Pagan Hero
Lavine, T. Z. From Socrates To Sartre
Sartre Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness
Sartre Jean-Paul. No Exit
Scofield, Martin. T. S. Eliot: A Study
Wollheim, Richard. Eliot and Bradley
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© Souvik
Mukherjee, June 2002
M Phil 2nd year (English Literature)
Jadavpur University, Calcutta
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