Further Dissecting of the Life Experience of Prufrock

It was previously revealed that Prufrock had a sour love life to which he was marked as alone in life. It goes much deeper than that.

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky; The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels;

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening;

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers

Eliot makes it clear that the setting is of the evening. this presents a vision of darkness to the reader, yet at the same time, Eliot manages to work his words into a peaceful surrounding. Prufrock wishes to go with the night and the darkness giving a hint at his feelings. At the start, he is pleased and calm, but later grows into restlessness. He progresses with the night further into a mysterious feeling with the yellow smoke and then reverts to calmness.

This setting forms the structure of Prufrock’s life throughout many parts of the poem. The setting reveals that he believes himself to be living in a darkened world shrouded by shadows, but this world is peaceful. When Eliot talks about the yellow smoke against the windows, Prufrock’s world is covered further from everyone, placing him in a world full of seclusion. The smoke obstructs the people of his world from knowing of his existence, leaving him alone.

Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile…

Prufrock also enters a state of disbelief. When he states the lines above, he is emphasizing that his life is not worth living and his life experience has been all a waste. This ties in with connections of life. Many people put their life together to later come to a conclusion that their doings were for nothing. Prufrock is making the same connection, that there is no purpose to his makings. Prufrock in these lines, is drowning himself in a life of despair that was brought upon him by his disbelief.

In the line, “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?,” Prufrock begins to question where his life is taking him and where he is heading. He does not know what to do with his life and and cannot make a decision. His failure to move forward results in him seeing that going on would be pointless. In the last line of the poem, “Till human voices wake us, and we drown.,”Eliot makes it clear that Prufrock killed himself. Prufrock’s incapability of creating a good future drove him to commit suicide. His life experiences in the shadows led him to disbelief and later to him thinking that he does not deserve to live.

At the beginning of the poem, there is an introduction written in Italian. The last three lines read:

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i'odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

There are many translations of these three lines. One translation reads :

But since never from this abyss
has anyone ever returned alive, if what I hear is true,
without fear of infamy I answer you.

This can be interpreted as upon entering the shadows, no one has returned alive, and Prufrock has no fear of entering the shadows. Prufrock is willing to enter the abyss and answer his true calling. Prufrock’s life choices led to his downfall, but he was not afraid of accepting what was in store for him in his future. Eliot’s poem emphasizes a lot about life and how it can have an impact on the mind. It reveals how planning one’s future can corrupt someone or prove helpful. The poem also shows how decisions can affect one’s mental state in whether or not what they are doing is worth it in the end.