The Hollow Men And The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock Essay

T. S. Eliot’s modernist style critiques the lifestyle of modern society during the Roaring Twenties. He expresses the false values found in society that affects their perception of themselves, and cause them to lose direction in their lives. Through his poems â€Å"The Hollow Men† and â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† Eliot explores the modern underlying issues of both society and man as being lost, stagnant, and aimless. He advocates for change through de-romanticizing the human condition via the use of allusions. Through such allusions, Eliot comments on the alienation, indecision, and inadequacy that hinder the forward progress of the modern man, warning that continuing to live aimlessly will result in empty and meaningless lives. Eliot uses an epigraph quoting Dante Alighieri to help explain the psyche and inadequacy of Prufrock. In â€Å"The Love Song†, there is an excerpt from Dante’s Inferno, when Guido da Montefeltro, concerned for his reputation, agrees to speak to Dante only because he does not believe anyone can â€Å"return alive from this depth, without fear of infamy† (Prufrock, Epigraph). This is important because, Guido agreeing to talk, parallels Prufrock, the narrator of the poem, when he agrees to take somebody, referred to as â€Å"you†, somewhere: â€Å"Let us go then, you and I,† (Prufrock, 1). This parallel shows that Prufrock is in a similar position as Guido, concerned with his reputation, and believes that he resides in hell, and whatever he may say will never beShow MoreRelatedThe Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock1647 Words   |  7 Pagesseen in T.S. Eliot’s work The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The main character, Prufrock, plans to ask the woman he loves the overwhelming question of marriage, but due to his pessimistic outlook, he became hesitant and self conscious. Surges of insecurity arise, and instead of proposing his love, Prufrock delays the question a nd spends the night talking nonsense to avoid the situation. In the end, Prufrock’s insecurities and fear of rejection alter his feelings of love into a sense of emotional protectionRead MoreEven Among The Giants Of Literature, Such As Arnold, Wordsworth,1181 Words   |  5 Pagesdoes one choose one work to define this man? Examining his personal beliefs and writings, there are a few threads which connect them all. These threads culminate in his 1925 poem, â€Å"The Hollow Men†, a poem which describes men stranded in a desert watching their only hope begin to fade away. Canto III of â€Å"The Hollow Men† best represents the essence of T.S. Eliot’s writings because it depicts the technique and ideas common throughout his work. Eliot’s primary technique is the use of imagery, which isRead MoreT.S. Eliots Writing Style and Use of Symbolism790 Words   |  4 Pagespossible. Ezra Pound made a big impact by encouraging T.S. Eliot. Pound would give him a lot of feedback. It was iin England Where he took writing seriously that’s where his career really began. He was first mainly famous for his poem â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in 1915. He learned that he really moved people and they loved his poem. The only thing that he really had to overcome was all the time he spent in college. T.S. Eliot’s poems are mainly what got him famous. When â€Å"Murder In The Cathedral†Read More TS Eliot paper1017 Words   |  5 Pagesfeeling detached and pushed away from the world sprang out from the pages. The poem entitled Hollow men depicts this idea very well. Here, TS Eliot describes how everyone is just hollow men stuffed with useless knowledge and things he calls ‘straw’. â€Å"Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to deaths other Kingdom Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men.† Even the dead in this poem look back on the people still alive and only see how emptyRead MoreThe Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock1966 Words   |  8 Pagessymbolism to capture the readers attention in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. The poem has a dramatic discourse. The percipience of lifes emptiness is the main theme of the poem. Eliot exhorts the spiritual decomposition by exploring a type of life in death. T. S. Eliot, who in the Clark Lectures notes, Real Irony is an expression of suffering(Lobb, 53), uses irony and symbolism throughout the poem to exemplify the suffering of J. Alfred Prufrock who believes he is filled with spiritual morbidityRead MoreAnalysis Of Eliot s Poem The Waste Land 1401 Words   |  6 Pageshis first wife s mental disintegration, and her retreat to a mental asylum. Eliot s early poetry also develops a series of characters who fit the type of modern man as described by Fitzgerald, Faulkner. The title character of â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† is a perfect example of solitary and utterly incapable of expressing himself to the outside world. As Eliot grew older, and particularly after he converted to Christianity, his poetry changed. The later poems of his work emphasized depthRead MoreEssay on Influences on T.S. Eliots Poetry1063 Words   |  5 PagesPound noticed his poetic gift and assisted in the publication of his work in many different magazines. Ezra Pound describes his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock as â€Å"the best poem I have yet had or seen from an American†. Ezra Pound then takes Eliot in as his student. In 1915, he published his first poetic masterpiece called The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock which was written four years before he published this piece. A few years later, Eliot worked at Lloyd`s Bank, but is orderedRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem The Burial Of The Dead 2047 Words   |  9 Pageson the past memories and present experiences in an individualistic, and philosophical approach, that is the style of The Waste Land, of the dramatic monologue. The difference between The Waste Land and T.S. Eliot s earlier poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is that the narrator of the poem repeatedly changes the personages, countries, and the use of mythologies. Thus T.S. Eliot s poem is a panorama of the fragmented and anarchic world. It s difficult to keep track of what the successiveRead MoreEssay on Emptiness in The Hollow Men2815 Words   |  12 PagesEmptiness in The Hollow Men  Ã‚     Ã‚   After Eliot had published The Waste Land, he felt as though he had not been able to fully convey the sense of desperation and emptiness in that work. Beginning with Doris’s Dream Songs and Eyes I Last Saw in Tears, he explored these themes, eventually uniting all such poems in The Hollow Men. The end product is a work that, unlike The Waste Land and its ultimate chance for redemption, has only the indelible emptiness of the hollow men as its conclusionRead MoreEliot s Poetry Of A Divided Mind2445 Words   |  10 Pagesromanticism we mean the hope of something better. Influenced by the anti-romantic teachings of Irving Babbitt, a Professor at Harvard, Eliot’s secular poems explore the possibility of a romantic or idealist worldview, which is then denied. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a perfect example, and indeed the â€Å"you and I† of the first line can be interpreted as the two dimensions of Prufrock’s character, the optimistic and the realist. This is reinforced by the poem’s famous simile: â€Å"When the evening is spread