The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock Summary

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everything that lives gradually grows older with time passing on as they near the close of their life. To many, this creates a veritable fear of leaving this earth behind with unfinished business as the travel to the unknown, but expected. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, the poet T. S. Eliot weaves a tale about the passing of time through the strategically placed questions in the poem, the use of figurative language, and the shifts in the mood of this famed poem. Throughout the poem, Eliot places rhetorical questions that not only indicate the passing of time, but also provide insight into the slow toll that time takes on the pondering mind of the speaker. One such use of this method occurs …show more content…
In a later stanza, the speaker starts to question his actions and life choice, pondering, “And would it have been worth it, after all, / Would it have been worth while,... And this, and so much more?-” (99-100, 103). The manner of this question is one of reflection and of regret as the speaker questions all the decisions that he made in the past. This question provides a perspective similar to that which one may see as an elder reflects on their life and all that they could have done but did not do as they lay dying or nearing the end of their days. Through a question burdened by regret for all the choices not made, for the risks never taken, the speaker acknowledges that time still runs on no matter if he is satisfied with his choices and life. Finally, in the third to last stanza the speaker seems to have truly accepted his fate of growing old as he turns his questions to musings of what is to come in the time he has left, including, “ Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?” (122). An impactful question with an equally impactful message, the speaker muses on what will come in the time he has left. The part where the speaker ponders over the