The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
What the major characteristics of the protagonist
illustrate what the major characteristics of the protagonist are?
illustrate what the major characteristics of the protagonist are?
Prufrock's paralysis is not over murder and the state of a corrupt kingdom, but whether he should "dare to eat a peach" (122) in front of high-society women.Indeed, Prufrock's paralysis revolves around his social and sexual anxieties, the two usually tied together. Eliot intended Prufrock's name to resound of a "prude" in a "frock," and the hero's emasculation shows up in a number of physical areas: "his arms and legs are thin" (44) and, notably, "his hair is growing thin" (41). The rest of the poem is a catalogue of Prufrock's inability to act; he does not, "after tea and cakes and ices, / Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis" (79-80).