The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: Motifs

Parenthetical Statements

Parenthetical statements appear at several points in “Prufrock.” Writers typically use parentheticals to insert information that is of secondary importance to the information conveyed in the main text. They can be used to give examples or offer clarifications, or else to comment on whatever is going on in the main text. In “Prufrock,” the speaker generally uses parentheticals to comment on his physical appearance, and usually in a critical way. As an example, consider two parenthetical statements that appear a third of the way through the poem, when the speaker is feeling particularly indecisive (lines 37–46):

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

As he thinks about walking down a staircase, he imagines a group of anonymous critics who will comment cruelly on his physical deficiencies. In the first parenthetical, Prufrock’s imaginary critics draw attention to his balding head, and in the second they note the slightness of his build. The emasculating effect of these comments suggests that his imaginary critics are women. The use of parentheticals here suggests that Prufrock is attempting to get out of his own head to see himself objectively, as women might see him. But given the degree of Prufrock’s indecision in this passage, this strategy seems self-defeating.

Teatime Trappings

Throughout “Prufrock” the speaker returns repeatedly to the notion of teatime and its various trappings: tea, coffee, milk, cakes, toast, jam, and fine china. Teatime first comes up in lines 32–34:

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of toast and tea.

Here, the reference to “toast and tea” arises within a discussion of time. A tension exists between, on the one hand, the speaker’s faith that there is enough time for all his “visions and revisions” and, on the other hand, the inevitable arrival of teatime. Whereas the speaker’s “hundred indecisions” represent an unstable relation to time, the tradition of taking tea in the late afternoon represents temporal stability. In this way, “the taking of toast and tea” has a grounding function, which is important for a man like Prufrock, whose meandering mind seems unmoored from both space and time. The further references to teatime that appear in the poem at once affirm the importance of taking tea as a grounding daily ritual, and yet also indicate the limits of such a ritual. As an example, consider lines 79–80:

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

Despite his surety that he will enjoy “tea and cakes and ices,” Prufrock remains unsure about his capacity to succeed in the attempt to woo the woman he presumably addressed in the poem’s opening lines.

Hair

References to hair abound in “Prufrock,” and they relate variously to the speaker’s sexual desire and his vanity, as well as to his deep self-consciousness. Two examples speak to Prufrock’s sexual desire. The first occurs in the image of a woman’s arm “in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair” (line 64). The second occurs in the poem’s final stanza, where the speaker describes mermaids swimming in the sea. Here, Prufrock displaces the mermaids’ beautiful hair into a strange image of “Waves / Combing the white hair of the waves” (lines 126–27). All other references to hair in the poem pertain to Prufrock’s own balding head. For example, in lines 39–41 he imagines a crowd of critics—probably women—standing overhead, commenting on his bald spot as he descends a staircase:

Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)

Later in the poem, Prufrock casts himself as John the Baptist, but with a bald spot that seems to disqualify him from the status of prophet (lines 81–83):

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet

These examples indicate Prufrock’s preoccupation with baldness, which in turn reflects his anxieties about age, masculinity, and general attractiveness. Though characteristically unsure what to do, he does venture one noncommittal idea: “Shall I part my hair behind?” (line 122).

Previous section Themes Next section Symbols