Saturday, February 5, 2011
Prufrock Question
In class on Wednesday, we discussed the epigraph at the beginning of Eliot's poem. To paraphrase the verse, Guido tells the Pilgrim that he will never tell his story to somebody who can leave Hell and damage his reputation. Therefore, if Prufrock is a pilgrim in a more modern version of Hell, are we to conclude that this is a Hell from which there can be no escape? Let's discuss.
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4 comments:
I think there is no escape from Prufrock's version of hell. He talks about the trivial aspects of life, which seem to be taking over. He says he measures his days in coffee spoons, implying that there is no meaning to life. The women talk about Michaelangelo very casually, representing the idea that all greatness (like his art) means nothing. At the end he says “Till human voices wake us, and we drown.” The tone here is very hopeless and there is despair, with no promise of a better tomorrow. We are trapped.
I also agree with Chrissy. Prufrock must think that his version of Hell has no escape. As we are reading the poem, we discuss the stagnant aspects of life. In the first stanza, it ends by saying that we question the purpose of life. Prufrock must think that life is like a maze with no end, which in his opinion is a version of Hell.
Just to play the devil's advocate, I will say that there is one way to escape this modern version of Hell. However, the only method of escape is death. Prufrock brings up the idea of death as he refers to "the eternal Footman." In fact, Prufrock declares that he fears this Footman. Therefore, Eliot suggests that despite the tedium, monotony, and meaninglessness of life, a version of Hell, it is still worth living and is superior to death.
The interpretation of this poem being a version of Hell intrigues me. We see that God is downplayed often with a lower-case "g," as you would expect him to be in Hell. And the last line further strengthens this point. Prufock is trying to give a wake-up call to all to show that life is like Hell. But interestingly and ironically enough, his message, according to himself, would be futile anyway.
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