In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S. Eliot addresses ageism in love. How time stands between comfort and frustration. How we allow ourselves to become bound by time, but in doing so time slips by and we miss out on what is important, lending to regrets. Eliot also brings forth the thoughts of human psychological delusional justification, because we always seem to want what we cannot have; once it is attained we become disinterested. So we are involved in a tiring battle with all aspects of mortality. It is written as if Eliot is Prufrock and we are being given a window into his mind. As we walk through life with Eliot/Prufrock we see what he sees…
“Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells…”
…feel what he feels…
“And I have known the eyes already, known them all-
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall;
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?”
…and he even remarks on what he thinks to be the remarks of those who he feels are judging him…
“With a bald spot in the middle of my hair-
(They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin-
(They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?”.
By asking whether or not he should “Disturb the universe” or not he is showing us his clear understanding that this is bigger than a personal id/ego and more so something that is bound to all of our morality and the justification we give to all aspects of it that is the universal property of all humans. So he is allowing the readers into the inner thoughts, harsh realities, and inner fantasies that are bringing what is imaginary, possibly illusionary, in his mind, into our reality. If something is not spoken out loud is it really real? All of this is a Modernist twist on non-time constraint thoughts that were suppressed in the predecessor Victorian era.
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