How Does Eliot Capture the Concerns of the Modern Individual in ‘the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’

T.S Eliot’s poem, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ encapsulates the concerns of the modern individual, including the paralysis, superficiality and monotony of society which were salient considerations of the period. Through the ruminations of the assumed narrator J. Alfred Prufrock, Eliot conveys the lack of purpose, obsession with mortality and the inadequacy and weariness which characterised the Modernist era. These issues are depicted as having been caused by the urbanisation and industrialisation of cities, and the Victorian preoccupation with decorum.
Eliot conveys the lack of purpose inherent within modern society through Prufrock’s narration, his constant questioning, and his description of the consequences of a society fixated on propriety. Throughout the poem, Eliot utilises imagery and rhetorical questioning to also establish the paralysis experienced by Prufrock. In the first stanza, Eliot writes, “like a patient etherised upon a table”, the simile suggesting that like the patient, Prufrock is paralysed within his environment. Eliot additionally depicts how the social niceties of the era and the lack of spontaneity had a paralytic effect on individuals, describing the “eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase”, and how Prufrock was left “pinned and wriggling on the wall”. Eliot’s choice of the word “formulated”, and also his repetition of “I have known the eyes already”, suggest how people had a potentially deadly array of social façades and pleasantries. The metaphor of the insect pinned to the wall is indicative of Prufrock’s feeling of inadequacy in face of the intense scrutiny of his social peers. Prufrock’s inadequacy is additionally reflected in the line, “To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”, where the repetition of “faces” and “meet” illustrate how people constructed a façade to conceal their true natures. Eliot comments, as we can see with the insect metaphor and his depiction of the façades of people, that the deceptive...