Essay Database

Jenna Hecker Anderson J. Arthur Prufrock as a tragic character The lovesong of J. Arthur Prufrock is a candid look into the tortured psyche of a man struggling with his self-image. J. Arthur Prufrock is afraid to admit to himself that he has failed. He has failed in love, in life, and in his ability to establish his own identity. Prufrock invites us to join him in his self-examination and paints for the reader a …

…fantasies to be a crab, swim with the mermaids, be young again like Lazarus and talk to women about Michelangelo with the composure and articulacy of Hamlet give him a detachment from his day-to-day worries about society, love, and self. He will never stop torturing himself trying to figure out that "overwhelming question." The only hope that Eliot gives the reader out of this poem is the hope that we don't end up like Prufrock