An image also associated with Michelangelo is his sculpture of David, considered to be the embodiment of male physical perfection. This allusion highlights the theme of sexual anxiety as suggested by Tepper in her article “Nation and Eros.” Michelangelo, a world-renown painter, sculptor and poet, serves as a model of the quintessential “Renaissance man”, the male ideal for perfection. Alfred Prufrock” serves as more than just a representation of the idle chatter of the attendees of the tea party. This repeated mention of Michelangelo by the women in “The Love Song of J. Prufrock’s apparent concern with his image and the way in which he is perceived by the guests at the party also serves to highlight his difficulties and anxieties regarding human interaction- a theme that is echoed throughout the poem in various other images.
The protagonist’s constant introspection and anxiety about his own death develops the theme of the mortality and fragility of human life. Through this passage, Eliot again displays Prufrock’s self-consciousness and fear as he nears the end of his life. Here, Prufrock expresses the belief that death itself mocks him in his old age. This theme is again echoed as Prufrock proclaims: “I have seen the Eternal footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short I was afraid” (lines 85-86). Prufrock’s anxiety about his own baldness, and also about the feebleness of his body, can be related to his obsessive fear regarding aging and death. As mentioned by critic Margaret Blum, Prufrock alludes to his own baldness or thinning hair on four different occasions during his dramatic monologue. The reoccurring image of baldness, and furthermore Prufrock’s obsessive anxiety about his own thinning hair, draws the reader’s attention to the theme of self-consciousness in this poem. [They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!” (40-44) My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin. With a bald spot in the middle of my hair.
Through his use of imagery and allusion in this poem, Eliot deals with themes that revolve around the fragile and self-conscious human condition, touching on the ideas of inadequacy, sexual anxiety and fear of mortality. While the explications of the images on this page follow the same disjointed pattern of organization as Eliot’s images themselves, I hope to show that while each image or image cluster are distinct and seemingly unrelated, they are tied together though thematic elements. By highlighting a few dominant images and allusions in the poem, I hope to gain some insight into Eliot’s use of imagery to relate the main themes of this poem.
In order to understand the meaning behind this poem, the reader must dissect Eliot’s imagery, analyze its symbolic meaning, and find thematic patterns. His use of precise language invites readers to examine each word and image closely. Ezra Pound, one of the most influential Imagist poets, defined this movement by saying: “ We are not a school of painters, but we believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous.” Knowing Eliot’s involvement with this movement, his use of imagery and description becomes especially important to the reader. They held that only words that are absolutely necessary to enhancing the description should be used in poetry. The language used by Imagists is clear and exact. Alfred Prufrock.” Imagism, a literary movement closely linked to modernism, is based on the principles that poetry should be constructed of precise descriptions of concrete images. Eliot uses the distinctly modernist style of Imagism to construct his poem, “The Love Song of J. By barraging readers with a seemingly disjointed collage of images, T.S.
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