The Mid-life Crisis in Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock :: Love Song J. Alfred Prufrock

T.S. Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is a poem which enters the energizing consciousness of its title character, whose feelings, thoughts and emotions are displayed in a motley exactly organized sequence, as they ride the earthly concerns vacillating mood. His is a mood wavering more often towards haplessness than fulfillment, because Prufrock is a man caught in a unrelenting cycle of introspection, journey, and retreat. More specifically, J. Alfred Prufrock, as developed by Eliot, is a man experiencing a mid life crisis, brought about by society, and sustained by his own fear and reluctance.  Throughout his song, Prufrock questions himself-importance. He does so not after(prenominal) a performed action, nor during, but nearly always before. Seemingly inbred in him is the tendency to think deeply into everything he does, so that the consequences of his actions may not attract the attention of a society he sees constantly lurking female genitalia him. Nervous and fearful of this hovering critic, Prufrock finds himself considerably shaken by life actions as simple as descending a staircase.   A task considered pro forma and performed without betrothal by others, Prufrock, when atop the staircase asks himself, Do I dare? and Do I Dare?(Eliot 811). His reluctance comes with the response to the question, which Prufrock in his self-consciousness answers for society, answering, (They will range How his hair is growing thin) and (But how his arm and legs are thin.  Prufrocks conflict thus arises because in his consciousness it is not the end of the stairs which tarry him as he stands at the top, but a society crouched in the shadows and poised to attack.  Henceforth, the cycle is revealed Prufrock professes an intention, hesitates in paranoia at the prospect of achieving it, and then retreats into self consciousness upon contemplating what society would think of him, and his thinning hair as he did it. This fact incites wizard to wonder if Prufrock, who repeatedly asks himself, And how should I presume? is trapped by and within his own mind, as it continues to engage in the aforementi unrivalledd cycle. It is within this thinning hair and these thin arms and legs where Prufrocks inhibitions, and consequently the crises he finds himself in, are rooted.  Only a man in a mid-life crisis could be so shaken by a brazen spot, so unnerved by silent comments aimed at his thin arms and legs (which leads one to envision his torso to be the opposite) by a society which fuels its subjugation of Prufrock with his own self-consciousness.