Expressive Paper 3

Aesun Kim
John Lovas
Ewrit 1C (H) - Expressive Paper 3
June 8, 2004

What a disappointment. I was initially planning on a more fitting title instead of the one you've just read, like: A Reflection: The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock -- Tailored to the Being of A. --insert middle name-- Kim. It would have delightfully followed suit with the title structure of J. Alfred Prufrock. But no, I have failed. I have no middle name to make things fit accordingly. If I had known...No. No, if my parents had known that having a middle name would play such an influential role in my last expressive paper of my English 1C Honors class eighteen years ago -- If they had known, hopefully they would have reconsidered. Now here I am left with an ineffective and unsuccessful product to present to you. Professor, there is absolutely no need to read the next five pages. This paper, in it's entirety, is a failure.

[new page -- page break]

I knew you'd flip the page and continue to read. I really did expect you to. The overplayed expression, "Don't judge a book by it's cover" has gotten a hold of you, I presume. Or perhaps, you're reading to see how this failed attempt plays out till its gloomy end. Nonetheless, if we let T.S. Eliot write a “love song” that didn't turn out to be a love song at all, then I should be given the small freedom to write a title that doesn't follow suit as well. After all, despite the unforgiving title, this just might turn out to be one of the greatest pieces of literature I've written. A start of a new career; just as how Eliot began with the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock as his first published poem. And so, finally, I invite you: "Let us go then, you and I . . . Let us go and make our visit" (1, 12).

It seems that readers tend to find more of an appeal in literary works that are more personally relatable than those that don't. It is just that sense of affinity I find in the case of Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock as well. I've read it many times before, taking into consideration all the analysis and criticism I was exposed to; however, I like this particular work more because of the specific lines and messages within the poem that stand out and associate with me on a personal level. I see notions such as how being consumed with the sense of time and losing that occasional carefree attitude makes our lives more routine and dull; the message of the worth of life and how I would find myself measuring it; the message of indecisive, wavering actions; and finally, the fall back into the reality of my life after reading this poem.

Firstly, the idea of being fixated on the ticking of a clock is portrayed in the way Eliot describes the dull and dreary city in the opening stanza. When Eliot mentions how the city is dreary and the streets are "half-deserted," (4) an image of the exact opposite appears in my mind. I relate this description as seeing a city bustling with people, but because everyone is so engrossed in living their own lives by the seconds on their own watches, even a chaotic city looks like an uninhabited place. When Eliot goes on to mention the women socializing, "In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo" (13-14) I relate this to the carefree attitude that we end up losing because of the habitual lives we build up. And yet, "Do we dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse" (45-48) by falling out of our routines in order to begin living a life that doesn't bound itself to materialistic desires and self-centered needs? Eliot's continuous obsession with time is depicted in his overemphasis such as:

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing it's back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murdera nd create,
And time for all the workds and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And yet time for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of toast and tea. (23-34)

His constant mentioning of time, especially in this aforementioned passage seems to be a reflection of how we tend to remind ourselves over and over again how we have so much time on our hands. There's basically a time for this and a time for that; a time for everything. When really, we sometimes find ourselves avoiding the truth that we don't have as much time as we would like at all; just as Prufrock finds himself saying, "I grow old ... I grow old" (120).

Knowing that life can pass by in a glance, Prufrock makes me wonder how I'll end up measuring my life a few decades from now. "And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups..." (99-103). Furthermore, after seeing these different notions in Eliot's Love Song, how will I change to live my life now? This is when Eliot's descriptions of indecision come to play. Whether to stay within the norms and live out the routine or to break away from it and challenge myself enough to live a balanced -- carefree and still structured -- life is questioned. Similar to the character of Prufrock, I am "Like a patient etherized upon a table," (3) "Am an attendant lord...At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--Almost, at times, the Fool." (2-119). The attendant lord brought up by Eliot is a reference to Polonius in Shakespeare's tragic drama, Hamlet. Unlike Hamlet who was hesitant at first and later very decisive with his actions, Prufrock and myself find more of an association with Polonius the servant who lacks decisive action till the end. In the case of my interpretation, even though we have a clue that we shouldn't run our days so obsessively around time, most of us are all paralyzed and can't act against it.

Even though we would like to have the intentions to live a more worthwhile life, we drown in the reality when we find ourselves unable to act. "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown, Till human voices wake us and we drown." The ending in Eliot's Love Song, is astoundingly beautiful -- especially the last line. I would find myself reading this poem and encountering these subtle personal messages and yet after reading to the last line, I find myself "drowning" back into the reality of how I may never end up acting upon my intentions; that I will end up questioning several years from now if "it had been worth it, after all" (99) and if I indeed did have time for "a hundred indecisions and for a hundred visions and revisions" (31-33). And more importantly, I end up asking myself:

And how should I begin?