Indeed, he is also attracted to (or at least side-tracked by) the arms of men: those lonely men ‘in shirt-sleeves’ who lean out of windows. He seems simultaneously attracted to the women and unwilling, or unable, to envision asking one of them out. Eliot often brings up old literary and historical writings and figures such as Dante’s Inferno, Andrew Marvell, Hesiod (a Greek poet), Michelangelo, Shakespeare, and several Biblical accounts such as John the Babtist, Lazarus (from the Gospels of John and. Prufrock has noticed the women’s arms – white and bare, and wearing bracelets – just as he is attracted by the smell of the perfume on the women’s dresses. Allusions are all throughout The Love Song of J. Yes: even arms are imbued with curious symbolism in Eliot’s poem. Meanwhile, Prufrock’s cryptic statement that he has measured his life out in coffee-spoons (not teaspoons, the usual unit of measurement) suggests that he has already mapped out how many coffees he can expect to enjoy over the rest of his life.ĭoes this symbolise his longing for certainty and routine, or the rather mundane life to which he feels condemned? We can crave order over our lives, but a life stripped of all excitement and impulsiveness can become deadened and predictable. ![]() The more surreal or fantastical images and symbols of ‘Prufrock’ are at odds with the rather dull, staid, stultifying middle-class backdrop, the ordinary settings in which Prufrock has these more outlandish daydreams of escape: the references to cups, marmalade, tea, and ices all summon the drawing-rooms of respectable New England society and the tea dances where young, unmarried men and women would meet and, following fairly strict social codes, approach each other with a view to courtship and, eventually, marriage. It is real life, the life of New England society, which really ‘drowns’ or suffocates him: the sea provides escape. Ironically, he only ‘drowns’ – he and the mermaids in their oceanic paradise are destroyed, in his imagination – when ‘human voices’ recall him from his reverie, or daydream. Indeed, Prufrock seems happy enough listening to the bewitching sound of the mermaids’ song (a detail possibly picked up from John Donne), and being left alone to enjoy their music. Although Prufrock’s statement that he does not think the mermaids will sing to him can be interpreted as self-pity (even the mermaids won’t notice Prufrock), he seems to welcome this blessed indifference as a contrast to the women he’s forced to socialise with at the dances and tea parties. The second notable sea-image in the poem comes at the end, when Prufrock talks about lingering in the sea, with mermaids singing to each other. There are no social pressures under the sea. ![]() ![]() There is something calming about the ‘silent seas’ far below the ocean’s surface, a far cry from the clattering of the teacups and the chatter about Michelangelo which Prufrock has to endure.
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