Class Discussion on The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

In class we all clarified each individuals observations of the poem. Our discussion covered how the poem was a love song in the imagination of the character. We discussed how this is not a typical love song that we see everyday, but that the author of this poem so the poem as a love story in his imagination. Another thing we discussed was how the man was getting old and he was alright with that, but he was realizing that he hadn't done much with his life, which was the reason for his depression and sadness. This plays into the significance of time and how the man realizes he doesn't have a lot of it left so he needs to make a change now if he plans on making the change. The significance of the name seemed to be that it indicated some type of royalty, which just added to the story in that he hadn't lived up to the standards of royalty throughout his life. He seemed to be socially awkward and indecisive, whereas royalty is usually the opposite. The man wants to be more than he is, which seems impossible for him giving way to why he sees this as a tragic love song. This also plays into the idea that the man can't have what he wants due to his lack of personality. The cool thing about our class discussion was it started as a big group, then went off into little side conversations and then finally brought back to a big group again, which I thought was really interesting.