Questions for "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Study Guide Answer the following questions about the poem. 1. What words would you use to describe Prufrock’s emotional difficulty in the poem? 2. What hints does the name “J. Alfred Prufrock” give us about the character of the “hero”? 3. How could the famous simile in lines 2-3 reveal that the speaker’s mind or will is paralyzed? 4. What is the speaker inviting someone to do in lines 1-12? What is suggested by the images of the place they are going to travel through? 5. What does the name Michelangelo contribute in lines 13-14? What would be the effect if, for instance, the women were “talking of Joe DiMaggio” or “discussing detergents”? 6. In lines 15-25, we have one of the most famous extended metaphors in modern poetry. What is being indirectly compared to what? How many details extend the metaphor? 7. The self-consciousness of the speaker is nowhere more evident than in lines 37-44. What do you think he is self-conscious and worried about in these lines? 8. What does line 51 imply about the way Prufrock has lived? What other measuring devices would suggest a different kind of life? 9. What references to women does Prufrock make in the poem? How do you think he feels about women and his attractiveness to them? 10. How are the setting and people described in lines 70-72 different from those familiar to Prufrock? What might this experience with another segment of city life fell us about Prufrock? 11. In lines 73-74, the speaker creates a metaphor to pointedly dramatize his alienation from the rest of the world. Can you explain why Prufrock thinks he should have been a clawed creature on the floor of the sea? 12. Lines 87-98 echo the widely heard complaint that a “lack of communication” between people is the cause of misunderstanding. What do you think Prufrock would like to tell people? 13. In lines 99-104, Prufrock considers summarizing his life to another person and reaches a point of exasperation that seems close to surrender: “It is impossible to say just what I mean!” Why does Prufrock find it so difficult to express himself to others? 14. Identify the brilliant visual metaphor in line 105. How does it relate to therest of the poem? How does the speaker think people will respond to his “exposure”? 15. Read lines 120-125 closely. Explain how the speaker sees his role in life. Do you think he has overcome his doubts? 16. How would you characterize someone who worries about the part in his hair and about what he should dare to eat (line 122)? 17. In lines 125-128, the speaker thinks that the mermaids are indifferent to him, yet he is held by this romantic vision. Why do you think he is so fascinated by these mythological creatures, and what might they represent for him? Why does he believe they will not sing to him? 18. By means of paraphrase, can you restate the meaning of lines 129-131? When “human voices wake us,” what do we “drown” in? 19. Think about this poem as a journey, a quest that begins with an invitation to join the man who makes it. What do you think the journey has finally led us to? Or do you think that the point of the poem is not so much an answer arrived at as an experience lived? Explain. 20. Explain why this poem—one of the most famous poems of the twentieth century—has been described as a reflection of spiritual emptiness and emotional paralysis. Do you think its depiction of life in Eliot’s day or our own is accurate? Why or why not?

"Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

T. S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1919) ________________________________________ Eliot was born in St. Louis and educated at Harvard University, but most of his adult life was passed in London. In the vanguard of the artistic movement known as Modernism, Eliot was a unique innovator in poetry and The Waste Land (1922) stands as one of the most original and influential poems of the twentieth century. As a young man he suffered a religious crisis and a nervous breakdown before regaining his emotional equilibrium and Christian faith. His early poetry, including "Prufrock," deals with spiritually exhausted people who exist in the impersonal modern city. Prufrock is a representative character who cannot reconcile his thoughts and understanding with his feelings and will. The poem displays several levels of irony, the most important of which grows out of the vain, weak man's insights into his sterile life and his lack of will to change that life. The poem is replete with images of enervation and paralysis, such as the evening described as "etherized," immobile. Prufrock understands that he and his associates lack authenticity. One part of himself would like to startle them out of their meaningless lives, but to accomplish this he would have to risk disturbing his "universe," being rejected. The latter part of the poem captures his sense defeat for failing to act courageously. Eliot helped to set the modernist fashion for blending references to the classics with the most sordid type of realism, then expressing the blend in majestic language which seems to mock the subject. What makes this poem different from a normal love song? ________________________________________ S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero, Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo. (1) Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized (2) upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats 5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust (3) restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question . . . 10 Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. (4) 15 The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20 And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25 There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30 Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go 35 Talking of Michelangelo. 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-- 40 [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 45 Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all:-- Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50 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? And I have known the eyes already, known them all-- 55 The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60 And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all-- Arms that are braceleted and white and bare [But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!] Is it perfume from a dress 65 That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? . . . . . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70 And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . . I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75 Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, (5) Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80 But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter, (6) I am no prophet--and here's no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85 And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, 90 To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: "I am Lazarus, (7) come from the dead Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"-- 95 If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: "That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all." And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, 100 After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor-- And this, and so much more?-- It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern (8) threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105 Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all." 110 . . . . . No! I am not Prince Hamlet, (9) nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, 115 Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-- Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old . . .I grow old . . . 120 I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. 125 I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130 Till human voices wake us, and we drown. ________________________________________ (1) A passage from Dante Alighieri's Inferno (Canto 27, lines 61-66) spoken by Guido da Montefeltro in response to the questions of Dante, who Guido supposes is dead, since he is in Hell:. The flame in which Guido is encased vibrates as he speaks: "If I thought that that I was replying to someone who would ever return to the world, this flame would cease to flicker. But since no one ever returns from these depths alive, if what I've heard is true, I will answer you without fear of infamy." (2) Anesthetized with ether; but also suggesting "made etherial," less real. (3) Cheap bars and restaurants used to spread sawdust on the floor to soak up spilled beer, etc. (4) The great Renaissance Italian artist. (5) Cookies and ice cream. (6) Like John the Baptist (see Matthew 14: 1-12) (7) A man raised from death by Jesus (see John 11: 1-44). Eliot may also have had in mind the Lazarus in the parable told by Jesus in Luke 16:19-31, in which case the poetical Lazarus would have returned to deliver a message which the Biblical Lazarus could not. (8) Early form of slide projector. (9) Shakespeare's sensitive hero known for procrastination. Dramatic Monologue: This poem is written as a dramatic monologue—a poem in which a character speaks directly to one or more listeners. The words are being spoken by a man named Prufrock. In a dramatic monologue, we must learn everything about the setting, situation, other characters, and the personality of the speaker through what the speaker tells us. Sometimes Prufrock’s line of reasoning is interrupted by an unexpected thought. You will often have to supply the missing connections in the speaker’s stream of thoughts and associations. This poem was published in 1915, during World War I. Annotate the poem when you come to examples of how Prufrock’s thoughts reflect ideas about his own time and perhaps about our time as well. Look for the idea that people are spiritually empty and the idea that contemporary life is unromantic and unheroic. Heroes are people of action, but some people have proposed that the drudgery of modern life has made many people observers rather than participants in life’s adventures. See whether you agree that the protagonist of this poem is a person of profound self-absorption and passivity, who fits the profile of antihero, the disillusioned and ineffectual protagonist we find in much modern and contemporary literature.

Wednesday, May 9 Journal

Look up Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" photograph. Use it to answer the following questions: Study the photograph. Describe the people in the photo. What objects are included? What activity are they doing? What is the setting? What is the body language? Facial expression? What is the theme or message of the photo? Is it effective? Why or why not? What is your opinion on the issue? How did the photo reinforce it?

May 7 - 11 Schedule

Monday: "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" Tuesday: Begin group work on TKAM final project (newspaper) TKAM quiz 16-21 Wednesday: Work Day Thursday: "Love Song" due Friday: Reading/work day

TKAM Final Project

Name__________________________Date_______________Period___________ Final Group Project for To Kill a Mockingbird Assignment You and your group will create a newspaper that reflects the setting, characters, conflict and plot of the novel. The articles are researched and written by you. Do not cut and paste existing material into your newspaper. That is plagiarism and will result in a failing grade. Section A is traditionally the “hard news” section. Each member of the group contribute an “A” section article (review a newspaper for an example of this type of article). Articles must be thorough, accurate and well-researched. Please include in-text citations from credible sources. Remember the “who, what, where, when, why and how” of reporting. Look to the issues described in the novel: poverty, justice, racism, prejudice and stereotyping for your A section articles. Choose a headline for your newspaper, and your lead article. Each article must have a picture (document the source). Section B has local news, and some lighter topics. Include a minimum of four articles from the following list: • Character Feature Piece • 1930's news story • Local News in Maycomb • Obituary • Advice Column • Horoscopes • Recipes • Crossword puzzles • Cartoons Section C is the Opinion/Editorial section. • Look through the opinion section of a newspaper and examine the types of articles you will find here. The articles range from editorials (both for and against issues), letters to the editor and political cartoons. Each group member will contribute an opinion/editorial on a topic the group decides (use a variety of topics just as a real newspaper does). • A political cartoon (drawn by a member of your group) • Assign each member of your group to write an opinion piece about events in To Kill a Mockingbird related issues (prejudice, justice, poverty, the Great Depression, racism, etc.). Use opinions of characters in the novel to help you understand how people in Maycomb would have felt about these issues. Write the article from the point of view of one of the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird. Your articles should show that you understand these issues and how people in 1930s Maycomb reacted to them.

Responding to Art and Found Poem

Name________________________________Date________________________Period___________ Art Art is a multifaceted world that can touch emotions in anyone, through its various forms and styles. Answer the following questions about specific works you enjoyed and/or disliked. (Be sure to include the title, artist, and a short description of the painting, photo, sculpture or art piece). What is one painting or piece of art that you really liked? What, specifically, intrigued you about it? Title: Artist: Description: What is one painting or piece of art that you really didn’t like? What, specifically, bothered you? Title: Artist: Description: What is one painting that you didn’t understand or see any meaning in? Title: Artist: Description: Why do you think some art is considered good and other art is considered bad? Whose opinion matters when discussing the world of fine art? In the space provided below, create a free-verse poem about one of the pieces of art. The poem should have a title and be a minimum of 10 lines. Be sure to include the title and artist (at the bottom of the page). Title: Found poem inspired by:

Movie Notes for TKAM

Name_________________________________Date__________________Period_______________ Symbolism in To Kill a Mockingbird Symbol: something that represents something else: something that stands for or represents something else, especially an object representing an abstraction (Bing.com dictionary) For a symbol to be truly a symbol, it must be repeated throughout a work. It may be difficult picking out symbols if you do not understand the purpose or the function of the symbol. The objects that appear behind the opening credits of To Kill a Mockingbird include a pocket watch, harmonica, pearl necklace, whistle, marbles, and a child's drawing of a bird- items that gain meaning as the story unfolds. The sequence is a good introduction for the story's symbolism and themes. It also shows (to quote Harper Lee again) how a film can have "a life of its own as a work of art." Notice how the camera moves in, like a child's vision, to close-ups of these valued objects, tracking from left to right along the row of treasures carefully arranged. Notice how the nostalgic music and humming of a child create a mood. And notice what happens to the drawing at the end of the sequence. ACTIVITY Pay careful attention to the opening sequence in the film. For each symbol, determine what is happening in the scene with the object and what it might mean or represent. Items seen in opening credits of the film Symbolic Meaning pocket watch harmonica pearl necklace whistle marbles drawing of a bird 1. Who is telling the story? Why is it being told? 2. How does it represent its subject- especially with reference to period? (representation, use of stereotypes, representation of the past) 3. Who are the characters in the film? 4. Did the actors make you forget they were acting? How? 5. What vivid visual images did you note? What did they make you feel or think about? 6. What is the film’s setting? 7. In what scene was an actor’s voice (pitch, volume, expression) particularly effective? Why? 8. What scenes can you understand even without dialogue? Why? 9. What are the main plot elements? (Conflict, resolution, rising action, etc.) 10. Select a scene that must have been difficult to act. How did the actor make his or her body movements appropriate and convincing? 11. What is the theme of the film? 12. Describe a scene in which facial expression was important. What feelings were developed? Were words necessary? 13. What is the mood of the film? How is it achieved? 14. Did the actors establish their characters more through dialogue or through movement and facial expressions? Give an example. 15. Other than those used in the opening credits, what symbols did you notice? What ideas did they symbolize? 16. Was there anything about the acting, set, or costumes that bothered you or interfered with your watching of the film?