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“Prufrock” has a meandering structure that mimics the speaker’s own imagined passage through an urban environment. The poem opens with the speaker issuing an invitation for “you and I” (line 1) to set out on a walk “through certain half-deserted streets” (line 4). It isn’t clear whom Prufrock is addressing, though it’s likely that he’s speaking to a potential lover. It also isn’t clear whether the speaker will actually go for a walk, or if he’s simply imagining what it might be like to do so. Either way, the poem’s opening lines establish the conceit of going for a stroll, which doubles as a form of mental meandering. Thus, the series of fragmented thoughts and impressions that comprise the rest of the poem could be said to approximate the experience of walking through a modern city. Cities are full of sights and sounds that constantly distract pedestrians by vying for their attention. The experience of moving through such a chaotic environment forces one’s thoughts to dart rapidly between external stimuli and internal reflection. If Prufrock ends the poem at the ocean, it may reflect an imaginative attempt to escape the chaos of his fragmented perceptions.

Though the poem does trace a loosely imagined trajectory through the city and toward the ocean, there’s another layer of structure that’s revealed when we look beyond the poem’s basic “plot.” This layer of structure relates to the way Eliot uses fragments of different poetic forms to assemble the various images and impressions that comprise the poem. Perhaps most significant are the numerous references to the sonnet. A sonnet is a highly structured poetic form consisting of fourteen lines, which are subdivided in different ways depending on style. An Italian sonnet features an octave and a sestet, whereas an English sonnet is organized into three quatrains and a couplet. Fragmented sonnets appear throughout “Prufrock.” For instance, the poem’s first fourteen lines approximate an English sonnet, though with irregularities of meter and rhyme that effectively compromise the form. Another significant example appears in lines 49–50:

     For I have known them all already, known them all:
     Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
     I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
     I know the voices dying with a dying fall
     Beneath the music from a farther room.
                    So how should I presume?

The ABBABB rhyme scheme implies that these lines form the sestet to some missing octave. These and other fragments gesture at an idealized notion of wholeness that’s symbolized by the sonnet’s refined formal structure. However, the collage of sonnet fragments that comprise “Prufrock” thwart the desire for any such refined and integrated wholeness.

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