He talks about measuring his life with coffee spoons. He uses objective images to communicate the emotion of despair, monotony, predictability and littleness. The coffee spoons, representing his evenings spent in the same predictable routine, measure his life and he gets aware of the passage of time through these images. Prufrock knows that in order to succeed in his amorous adventure he needs to wear a mask, to become something other than what he is. At the same time, he knows that he will never fit in or belong to his surroundings.
When he is at a social gathering, in a coffee shop, a pub or restaurant, he retires to a corner and looks at the fog gathering on the window pane.
Walking along the sandy beach he dreams of mermaids and their song. His remarkable intellect flashes in his dark humour:. So Prufrock inflates his actions, creates a climactic tension only to deflate it. He makes us feel that his act of proposing to a lady is as significant as murder or creation, as if he will end up disturbing the universe by this enormous act of courage, only to say at the end that it is no great matter at all.
Throughout the poem, Prufrock repeatedly talks about his physical appearance. He has a bald spot on his head, his hair is growing thinner every day, his arms and legs are not muscular or strong. In short, he is the epitome of ordinariness. However, at the same time, he is aware of the expected image of virility and masculinity that is present in the minds of people. Perhaps he constantly compares himself to these virile figures of grand masculinity, only to find himself belittled and insignificant.
He manages to have these episodes or digressions where he transports himself to the world of fantasy, away from the world of human formulations. Sometimes he yearns to be the lonely crab immersed in silent seas, sometimes he dreams of swimming with the mermaids, sometimes he looks at the evening fog and becomes one with it.
These moments show the romantic side of Prufrock which desperately seeks to escape human interaction. However, he is brought back to reality soon through human voices:. He resides in an infernal universe and is always conscious of his shortcomings. It is as if he is living in a metropolitan inferno where human beings do not exhibit any sensitivity, compassion or uniqueness. He is caught in a cyclic dystopia where every action is undone the next moment.
The lines from Inferno, quoted in the beginning of the poem, is an indicator of this crisis. The flickering tongue of flame, Guido, speaking to Dante, is ready to confess and tell everything only because he is certain that Dante would never escape hell to reveal the story to the people of the world. Prufrock is hesitant to express himself likewise.
However, he ends up baring his soul to us probably because he knows that we too will never leave this infernal universe just like him. It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man—overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted.
Dramatic monologues are similar to soliloquies in plays. Three things characterize the dramatic monologue, according to M. First, they are the utterances of a specific individual not the poet at a specific moment in time. In the world Prufrock describes, though, no such sympathetic figure exists, and he must, therefore, be content with silent reflection.
The rhyme scheme of this poem is irregular but not random. The bits and pieces of rhyme become much more apparent when the poem is read aloud. Eliot engages his readers with an assortment of emotions.
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