In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" the reader is shifted from a distant perspective to a more intimate closeness to the subject. Give an...

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" begins with a description of a walk through the streets of an unnamed city in the evening--after dark. This description continues from line 2 to line 22. The next section seems to switch to the internal environment, the thinking of Prufrock, and yet it is phrased in the second person: "the faces that you meet," "drop a question on yourplate." So far the poem has kept us...

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" begins with a description of a walk through the streets of an unnamed city in the evening--after dark. This description continues from line 2 to line 22. The next section seems to switch to the internal environment, the thinking of Prufrock, and yet it is phrased in the second person: "the faces that you meet," "drop a question on your plate." So far the poem has kept us at a distance from how Prufrock is feeling. That all changes at line 38 with the question "Do I dare?" and even more so at line 40 where he mentions "a bald spot in the middle of my hair." Now the pronoun "you" is replaced with "I," and the rest of the poem gives us a very intimate view of Prufrock's deepest insecurities. Those include his thin arms and legs, his "slightly bald" head, his advancing age, how he should comb his hair, and even his ability to "eat a peach." Beyond insecurities about his physical condition, though, we are also brought close enough to know the deep questions that trouble Prufrock, including whether his date will laugh at and misunderstand his conversation, his fear of dying, and his conviction that his best days are behind him, and they didn't amount to much. So although the poem starts out keeping the reader at a distance, it soon invites the reader into the fascinating and poignant inner sanctum of J. Alfred Prufrock's heart.