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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 73518 Views
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Description:
"The Love Song of Shmoop" is next.
Transcript
- 00:04
The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, a la Shmoop.
- 00:09
Love is great and all, but it can also be the source of a lot of stress...
- 00:14
...especially when your love is unrequited...
- 00:19
...and you have a million other things to worry about, like whether or not your bald
- 00:24
spot is getting bigger. In T.S. Eliot's Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock...
Full Transcript
- 00:31
...the narrator has a lot on his mind.
- 00:36
But what is it that really has poor Prufrock so torn up?
- 00:41
First of all, he’s afraid to express his love, because it may not be returned.
- 00:47
He'll be a happy man if his lady friend loves him back...
- 00:51
...but what if she disses him?
- 00:53
The potential for romantic disaster is enough to make anyone a little crazy.
- 00:57
But it may be something else…
- 01:01
Prufrock loathes himself. Seriously, the man mentions his bald spot multiple times...
- 01:06
...and worries about his skinny limbs...
- 01:08
...and frets about his wimpiness.
- 01:10
He claims he “should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floor of
- 01:14
silent seas.”
- 01:16
It's an understandable wish: at least then Prufrock wouldn't have to deal with hair loss.
- 01:21
Third option...
- 01:23
Prufrock knows he's a fool...
- 01:24
...but he's also stuck in a world he doesn't understand, surrounded by pretentious people
- 01:29
with the emotional depth of a kiddie pool.
- 01:31
No wonder he feels so lost and unsure. So, what's got Prufrock so worked up?
- 01:36
Is it unrequited love?
- 01:39
Self-loathing?
- 01:41
Or is it that he feels lost… a foolish man surrounded by cruel, shallow people?
- 01:47
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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