J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock
I found my print out of the poem from sophomore year and used it for the discussion and reading. My notes all over the place really helped. Unfortunately I lost the papers momentarily and in two days I can post photos of the poem. For now, here is the link http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/173476

In class we talked about a lot. Large group talk turned into a lot of little chats then came back to the big talk a few times. Here are some of the main points that I took from the discussion this past week.

• J. Alfred Prufrock: the name is so big and grand, like John Hancock or someone else important in history, yet he hasn't amounted to anything really. Miles pointed that out. Alyssa and Imanie pointed out the irony, I believe.
• Prufrock is like evaluating his life and all the chances that he never took, all of the missed opportunities that he missed, everything that never happened he now regrets.
• It's sad how he's an old man now, full of regret. An old man rolling up his trousers, maybe from shrinking in his old age, but mostly getting ready to walk on the beach, as the poem ends. Alec mentioned how walking on the beach is a romantic thing that couples do and that he is all alone now without a woman.
• the yellow smoke is feline and womanish. It's also man-made problems that he's been consumed with.
• the teaspoons he measures his life in are his own perception of time. We wondered why there wasn't another item used to measure. Teaspoons are so small, meaning that his life dragged on for a long time possible
• The women "coming and going speaking of Michalangelo" could have meant a lot of things: they were educated women, they were always coming and going in and out of Prufrock's life, they were into another man besides him, comparing him to the masterpiece
• Lazarus could have been alluded to because he was given life again. Prufrock kind of realized himself way too late in his physical life and even though he has new realizations, his born-again-self won't be long lived. We related a bit to Christianity- like does Prufrock want to go to heaven?
• Liz and I talked about how in touch with reality he was throughout the poem. Was the dreaming? Like in the end when it says that "they wake us and we drown" or how he changes a lot during the whole thing. Is he physically growing old throughout? As a whole we all decided that he was old and going through his whole life.
• It's pretty sad as a whole. He's not able to act on his feelings inside. He wanted to be loved and never got it. Like Hamlet he struggled internally to act instead of just waiting for it to happen and he never did. Now's he's stuck with the sad realization of it and there's nothing he can do before he dies. Hamet was a character who, after all of this pain and agony, was able to fulfill his own wishes and complete his mission. Poor Prufrock kind of sucked at taking action. He had his whole life and nothing.