Symbolism in T S Eliot's 'The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock' and 'The Waste Land'

By moahmed nadi, Student

This essay will cope with the technique that Eliot uses in his 2 aforesaid poems

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

Walking in the same footsteps of his contemporary Yeats , Eliot connected most of his earlier works to the French Symbolists whom he came into contact with through reading "The symbolist movement in Literature" By Arthur Symons .

To begin with , there is a tendency to say that akin to Yeats , Eliot's early works " The love song of J alfred prufrock & the waste land " formulate on a wide range of symbols and images to depict a chaotic modern world . The first poem in basically in the form of a dramatic monologue where the speaker is talking to his alter ego . Prufrock , a man like his peers feels isolated and incapable of decisive action to vocalize his thoughts . In a roundabout manner , the pome is not structured in any logical pattern of thoughts , but rather consists of a series of loosely associated ideas , images and symbols . To reflect Prufrock's stream of consciousness , Eliot uses a method he calls "the objective correlative" by which he dramatizes sensations , emotions and feelings through a set of objects , a situation and a chain of events .

Throughout the poem , one can notice a prevalence of symbols , especially as objective correlatives (objective symbols ). That is , things that stand for feelings or ideas : For instance , 'a patient etherized upon a table ' and 'i have measured out my life in cofee spoons . In addition , the street images where Prufrock lives involves symbols like 'the muttering retreats' 'one night cheap hotels' which suggest a theme of alienation and drabness . Last images fluctuate between 'do I dare ?' and 'I shall' . By means of the objective correlative , Prufrock as an observer becomes observed . Too , the symbolism of " the waste land " is apparent in 'garden', 'water' , 'tarot cards' and 'stairs' and so on and so forth ; all employed to refer to the theme of death , rebirth , levels of love and aesthetical levels .

To sum up , it can be assumed that Eliot sought to express his symbolic imagery in the same way the French symbolists have done it .