The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - Essay Example

This song has a speaker just like any other literature. Prufrock is the speaker who effectively addresses a potential lover. He would force the moment to its crisis by hurriedly consummating their relationship, “Let us go then,  Like a patient etherized; The muttering retreats," (Eliot 1). He then eavesdrops what people are saying about him and changes his decision and heart. This makes him to coward back and also reminds him of so much knowledge he has in life and not to "dare," (Eliot 40) mess it up.

1. Alfred Prufrock love song is an anguish of an urban or modern man, stroke with a mixture of feelings. These feelings are the ones that best give the tone of the entire song. The tone of the song is loving and desperate at some point. The song is a mixture of emotions. The loving emotion is shown when Prufrock says," Let us go then, you and I" (Eliot 1). This tone is vivid throughout the song and helps bring out the speaker's characteristic of being loving. The tone of despair also comes out very strongly. Especially when the speaker realizes that he might lose something that he has been holding on for some good time in memorial. When he says, “And indeed there will be time to wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" .Time to turn back and descend the stair, with a bald spot in the middle of my hair” (Eliot 4). The tone also helps in bringing out the speaker’s character that is not expressly brought out in the song.                   

This love song is a literary drama that contains the dramatic monolog . This is brought out by the specific utterances of a specific individual, not within the song at a specific moment in time. This is shown by, [They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"] and [They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"], (Eliot 4). These monologue utterances are also directed to the listeners whose presence are not physically felt but merely suggested, “Then how should I begin? To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?  And how should I presume?” (Eliot 6). This literary device also brings out the speaker’s character and attitude.

This love song is also rich in rhyme though; this rhyme is irregular and is not random. Refrain first makes this rhyme, for instance, "In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo" (Eliot 30) and “So how should I presume?” (Eliot 60). Secondly, rhyme is created through the use of alliteration, for example, "Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys”(Eliot 30).