Tuesdays with J. Alfred Prufrock

After several attempts of reading and trying to full comprehend The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock what I got was a sense of habitual carelessness of putting off important matters from Prufrock time and time again. He seems to be pushing things to last minute but in the end they will never get done. He uses the word of “time” in the on context there is still enough time to get whatever he needs to get done. For example in line 26 when he says “There will be time, there will be time” this phrase describes the overall tone of the rest of that stanza and the following because he’s implying there is always time to do something. However he doesn’t realize his body doesn’t stay the same with time limiting his abilities to get his obligations done with. To me it seems he never fully commits to the things he says he will do. He never directly asked his “over whelming question” that he talks about in stanza one and again in stanza 13 and compares the idea of asking a question to squeezing the universe into a ball which seems like an impossible task. He also says in line 37 “And indeed there will be time.” Prufrock is just giving himself an excuse that time doesn’t stop so he doesn’t need to be quick about getting his stuff done.

For those who have not read Tuesdays with Morrie. It’s about a man named Morrie who is a professor at Brandeis University who becomes ill with a neurodegenerative disease. One of his favorite pupils Mitch, also the author of the novel, discovers that his favorite professor is ill after seeing him on the television and decided to visit after sixteen years of not seeing him. Like Prufrock, Mitch would always put his work ahead of everything else and carelessly push everything else that mattered back, and not considering time of being of the essence. Mitch had a meaningless life that was revolving on issues that weren’t supposed to be that important, he went as far as to push back staring a family with his wife all because he was focused solely on his work. As Mitch visits Morrie every Tuesday till the day he dies he sees him withering away and slowly being more helpless with every passing Tuesday. He soon realizes that he still has time to priories his life and to put more important thing other than work first and to enjoy life and to accept death.

I see Morrie as how Prufrock sees himself in line 94 and 95 when he says “I am Lazarus, come back from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all.” Because as Morrie realizes that Mitch is pushing everyone and everything else back just so he can do his job and he wants him to realize he is wasting his time doing meaningless things. Morrie gives him life lessons to so he can too look back as his life when it’s his time to go and he knows that he has lived his life to the fullest. So when Prufruck says he is “Lazarus” I sense he is saying that he wish he can also come back and redo his life and not carelessly push back important matters. An not die an old man that regretted his actions or lack there off. Prufrock is missing his own Morrie so he too can be warned about life being cut short or missing out on important events all because there seems to be time to get it all done. It’s sad that Prufrock realizes his error of his ways a little too late because by this time he’s so close to death there isn’t much he can do to change. He can only reminisce and think back on how he could have changed his life. Luckily for Mitch, he has Morrie to help guide him on the right path to find true happiness instead of pushing happiness back and other day and another.  Prufrock repeats a phrase of “would it have been worthwhile.” I can see that he is starting to realize that maybe he should have taken a chance.