Landscape in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T. S. Eliot

Landscape in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot Although the full meaning within T. S. Eliots dense poetry The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock proves unenviable to grasp, the deep meaning packed into every word makes the pursuit to understanding this rime a never-ending adventure. Scenery in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock re give ways an intensely mental account which should never, in any instance, by taken liter tout ensembley.The loss of time, the confusion of past, present and approaching tenses, the static movement, and the eternal metaphor of the question produces this psychological scenery which in turn amplifies the intensity of the poem. Time in Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock plays a very important part in creating the landscape of the briny characters narration. The overwhelming sense of being caught in time begins within the number 1 three lines after the epigraph Let us go then, you and I,/When the change surface is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table.Just like a patient anesthetized by ether, the narrator appears trapped in a distance of vulnerability at the mercy of others without the foundation of time. Also, the association of the sky with an object as non-moving as a stone evokes a space in which the sky or the atmosphere has no movement the loss of physical time. Time, in the case of the poem, appears endless (And indeed there will be time. pg. 4) as consequence to the narrators psychological state of stuckness and the sense of time be dumbfounds warped in confusion and solitude.J. Alfred Prufrocks isolation too represents a loss of time within the poem. The repetition of And indeed there will be timeThere will be time, there will be timeAnd indeed there will be time alludes, once again, to a landscape without time. Also phrases such as In the room the women come and go/ talk of the town of Michelangelo use repetition for the purposes of emphasizing Prufrocks monotonous existence a nd solitude without an attempt of improvement. . In addition, J.Hillis Miller explains Like the women talking of Michelangelo, he exists in an eternal present, a frozen time in which everything that might possibly expire to him is as if it had already happened For I devote known them all already, known them all (CP, 4). In this time of endless repetition Prufrock bearnot disturb the universe even if he should presume to try to do so. Everything that might happen is foreknown, and in a world where only one read/write head exists the foreknown has in effect already happened and no action is possible.Prufrocks observation but miss of contribution emphasizes his state of solitude, and his consistent lack of contribution throughout the remainder of the poem demonstrates the impaired movement in the poem Similarly, the confusion of tense also demonstrates a landscape without the existence of time. Confusion of tenses in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock substantiates the feeling of immaterial space such as whenThe yellow fog that rubs its gage upon the window-panes 1 The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, 4 Let fall upon its back the lampblack that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. 4) 8 The first two lines describe the fog in present tense, but the third in past tense. In the fourth line, Prufrock begins with past tense (Lingered upon the pools) and continues in present tense (that stand in the drains). The fifth line makes the same change in tenses and the remainder of the stanza continues in past tense. Space, explains J. Hillis Miller, must be exterior to the egotism if movement through it is to be more than the following of a tedious argument in the mind.In the same way only an objective time can be other than the self, so that the flow of time can mean change for that self, therefore time has only a subjective existence for J. Alfred Prufrock. Subsequently, past, present, and future exist in the immediate moment. Static movement in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock plays an important role in emphasizing the state of the poems landscape. Essentially, J. Alfred Prufrock admits to knowing the lack of movement when In a minute there is time/ For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.The narrators message that no matter what he does, there will never by change emphasizes a desperation to move which the characters subconscious inhibits by habit and indecision. Monotony due to proclivity when For I have known them all already, known them all/Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, / I have measurable my life with coffee spoons demonstrates invariability in the narrators mind because all he points out having done exists in the mind known the everyday routine, and mea sured every moment of his life in his mind.In addition to the narrators self-assessed lack of movement, Prufrocks narration places him in a less-than- human position when he says, I should have been a pair of ragged claws/ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. That Prufrock compares his monotonous existence as being equal to that of a crab in the privacy and stillness of the ocean floor directly demonstrates his deadlocked existence.The continuance of the nonreciprocal question also demonstrates mental deadlock because although the overwhelming question crops up septuple times throughout the poem, the narrator does not or cannot explain the question, nor does an answer arise. The lack of progress demonstrates an eternal present in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. In addition to the endless time in The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock the metaphor of the question symbolizes the barrier between Prufrocks mind and the outside world. The actual unanswered question throughout the story may demonstrate a lack of movement, but it extends much farther than a question. All that is mis parley and incommunicable acts as an extension to the consequence of the question. Throughout the poem, Prufrocks struggle to communicate with both the characters in his mind and the reader demonstrates his self-acknowledged impotence.The inability to communicate when Prufrock says, In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo(4) demonstrates the barrier between Prufrock and society because Prufrock never approaches the characters of which he speaks, he only watches from an unknown distance in an unknown location. Although Prufrock does not approach these figures of society, the moments there is communication demonstrates social flaw. J.Hillis Miller explains that Prufrocks vision is incommunicable, and whatever he says to the chick will be answered by, That is not what I meant at all. /That is not it, at all. The lady is also imprisoned in her own sphere, and t he two spheres can never, like soap bubbles, become one. Each is impenetrable to the other. The last five stanzas of the poem show a change in scenery which seems to switch to the seaside and then into the chambers of the sea which restores his original wish to have been a savage of the sea.This scene also demonstrates the consequences of attempted communication between the outside world and the narrator when We have lingered in the chambers of the sea/ By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and browned/ Till human voices wake us, and we drown. This passage, especially the end line, displays the effect of outside vitiation on Prufrocks mental state. The result of drowning as consequence to the human voices isolates the bubble that is the narrators existence from the outside world which, once penetrated, can no longer function. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock captures the landscape inside the mind of the narrator through many subtle and abstract ways. The intense meaning of the poem captured through the mind of the character uses the loss of time, the confusion of past, present and future tenses, the static movement, and the eternal metaphor of the question in order to produce an intensely psychological landscape. The obvious amount of thought and effort embedded in the language of the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock demonstrates the great meaning seen within Eliots poetry.