Modernity in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S Eliot

In the end of 19th century, appeared “modernists” who were writers and artists. They were trying to find out what was happening when the century turned to 20th century, because there are significant changes from the 19th century to the 20th century. Small cities might be the main field of the urban-life style because they were transformed from farming populations to small urban centers such as banks, cinemas, hospitals, department stores, shops, factories, and ware shops.

One of modernism writer was T.S.Eliot. He was born in St.Louis, Missouri, United States on September 18th 1888. His work, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, was considered as an influential poem in the movement of modernism because it contained imagery, and had introduced some of character such as despair, anxiety, hopelessness and fragmentation.

In this poem, the speaker, Prufrock, wanted to ask something, an overwhelming question, to the woman he desires. On the way to the meeting place, he describes everything that surrounded him in a dull and bitter way. He thought that everything was overwhelming and disorderly arranged. He also scared of the response that he would get when he tell that something to the woman. While he was walking down the street, he thought some random things in his life, which shows a fragmentation. As he walked and describing things around him, he jumped to his worries about future and old age, then he talked about women and Lazarus. In thoughts of his old age, he seemed indecisive, confused and hopeless; we can see that in “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? / I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach / I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each / I do not think that they will sing to me”. He also felt that no one would love him and take care of him. He thought that his life was miserable and undesirable, that is why he tell and describe something in a gloomy way. We can see in “It is impossible to say just what I mean” that he felt he was incapable of saying things, which shows his anxiety and despair of himself. Another example of his anxiety and hopelessness is when he was on the way meeting the woman, instead of making himself calm (because of the overwhelming question), he torture himself by asking more of depressing question like “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?”; “So how should I presume?”; “And how should I begin?”. The despair, anxiety and hopelessness of Prufrock show the character of modern man. Furthermore, this poem showed a bit of obsession in a modern man. Prufrock believed that there was no point to ask the overwhelming question to the woman, but he decided to continue meeting the woman. Out of its theme and interpretation, Eliot used imagery in this poem, which is one of sign of modernism. For example, "When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table" in lines 2–3, the "sawdust restaurants" and "cheap hotels," the yellow fog, and the afternoon "Asleep...tired... or it malingers" in line 77. To conclude, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock could be considered as the sign of modernism because Eliot used imagery in the poem and also feelings like despair, anxiety and hopelessness which were characters of modern man.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_Song_of_J._Alfred_Prufrock#Themes_and_interpretation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot
https://www.academia.edu/attachments/31623936/download_file