Thomas Stearns Eliot, more popularly known as T. S. Eliot, was a writer of great promise and, eventually, great success at the time when the Modernism literary movement was gaining traction. Eliot actually wrote the majority of his famous poem around 1910, but it wasn’t until fellow Modernist writer Ezra Pound discovered the work that Eliot, after some revisions, published it in 1917.
Eliot’s poem was considered revolutionary. Eliot deftly employs many of the standard techniques of Modernism to detail the experiences of the titular character and speaker. He incorporated themes of alienation, both from one’s self and society at large, fragmentation, the unconscious as a motivator for thought and behavior, and a decisively experimental form: rhyme is present but is highly irregular, meter is also irregular, and stanzas range in length from a mere two lines to as many as eleven lines in some places.
The result is that the reader discovers layers of self-doubt, self-mockery, and a lack of self confidence all interwoven into one grand tapestry whose threads feature themes of longing, ennui, paralysis, and introspection. These thematic threads can be analyzed individually, but, as soon as the reader tries to unravel one, the work perversely tightens in other places, making a definitive analysis or final meaning always beyond reach.
The opening line, “Let us go then, you and I” (1), would, at first glance, seem like an invitation to embark on a jaunt or escapade to a friend or partner, and may be romantic in nature. This interpretation is shattered in the next two lines, “When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table” (2-3). This simile jolts the reader out of any romantic ideas he might have had and, instead, thrusts him into the cold and the clinical: the sky is not romantic and the speaker and his subject are not lovers going for an evening stroll, they are mentally anesthetized and the sky is inert and suspended, void of movement. This is a description of paralysis, not passion, and is a prime example of the technique of absurdity.
Eliot goes on to incorporate yet another technique of Modernism: fragmentation, specifically of the self. He never establishes precisely to whom it is that Prufrock is speaking. It is easy to assume that it is a companion of some sort, but an alternative interpretation is that Prufrock is actually conversing with himself. This internalized dialogue sets the poem’s whole tone and is thematically important, as it informs everything that comes after. Prufrock might, after all, be conversing with his own anxieties and insecurities, making both an unwilling tour guide as well as a bewildered tourist of his own mind, constantly asking, “How did I get here?”, and, “Where am I going?”
The poem also makes use of what is known as syntactical symbolism, which is when the diction and construction of a sentence reveals meaning beyond what the sentence simply says. Eliot chose to use the environment and its atmosphere to explore Prufrock’s alienation from both society as well as the world at large; this imagery is akin to a map of Prufrock’s mind and subconscious. The city is partially personified, as in the line, “The muttering retreats” (5), and partially psychic in nature, as in “…through certain half-deserted streets” (4) and “Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels” (6). Prufrock, through his diction and description, reveal a psychic landscape of loneliness and desperation. Even the yellowed fog is not spared: it is anthropomorphized as rubbing “…its back upon the window panes” (15), licking “…its tongue into the corners of the evening” (17), and lingering “…upon the pools that stand in drains” (18). The fog is Prufrock: existing in the world but never truly comfortable in it. These images partly reveal and partly reflect Prufrock’s interior: the streets meander like his own indecision; the “…women {that} come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo” (13-14) represent his longing for companionship with the ‘fairer sex’ coupled with his fear of being rejected and derided for not being sufficiently cultured.
Eliot also employed repetition to great effect. Prufrock’s internal repeating thought that, “And indeed there will be time,” (23) and, “There will be time, there will be time,” (26), seem like a soothing, reassuring mantra, but is actually a cleverly hidden trap. Assuring himself that he has copious amounts of time still actually enables Prufrock in his perpetual procrastination. This turns the repetition into something more like a spell or incantation, bewitching Prufrock into comfortable stagnation. The line, “And indeed there will be time/ To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”’ shows the trap snapping shut: Prufrock is allotted time but not action.
Yet another technique Eliot employed was the theme of absolute alienation, not just from other people or the world, but from Profrock’s own physical body. Here, the body is utilized as a source of even more anxiety and self-doubt. Prufrock is so self-conscious that it borders on pathological. He is insecure about his balding pate, as demonstrated in the lines, “With a bald spot in the middle of my hair~/ (They will say: How his hair is growing thin!”) (40-41), as well as his declining physique, as evidenced by line 44: “(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”). Every supposed ‘deficiency’ amplifies his sense of inadequacy and reinforces his sense of alienation. His body has become an obstacle, an encumbrance, not an extension of agency or zest.
One of the reasons that a definitive interpretation of this poem is so elusive is due to what I like to call ‘The Absent Grand Question’. Prufrock wonders, “Do I dare/ Disturb the universe?” (45-46), but Prufrock, paralyzed, procrastinating Prufrock, never reveals what question he wishes to ask, nor what action on his part would “Disturb the universe.” It is left to be inferred, never resolved: is it a romantic confession (or at least one of desire) that is so crucial that he simply cannot bear to give voice to it? The reader is left unsatisfied, to wonder eternally: What was it? This unasked question echoes silently in the cave of negative space it creates which is a void filled with dread. Paradoxically, not to mention masterfully, the lingering silence is louder than any confession could be.
Prufrock’s final undoing is his conjuring up a bevy of mermaids, sensual singing sirens who represent erotic possibilities and beauty. But, almost as quickly as he has done thus, he reflexively disqualifies himself immediately, “I do not think that they will sing to me.” (125) This line is akin to shutting the door upon wonder, myth, and sensual fulfillment. These things exist, but not for Prufrock (or so he believes), furthering his alienation. The final line, “Til human voices wake us, and we drown,” (131) exposes the flaw of Prufrock existing only in his fantasies: when roused by an intruding force, he drowns under the weight of the real world, a world he cannot navigate, let alone enter.