It’s T.S. Time, Baby.

T.S. Eliot is a pretty big punch in the face. One of his most famous poems, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” tells the tale of an extremely paranoid man who is desperate for love. He’s one of the smartest men out there, he probably did amazing on his SATs, but he lacks the social skills needed to survive in the world outside of school. Eliot shows that Prufrock is without a doubt among his peers by sprinkling the phrase “In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo,” throughout the poem. Prufrock is a constant thinker, but not in the traditional way. He’s nervous that every single thing he does is being analyzed by the people around him. He wonders, “Do I dare/Disturb the universe?” Two common dilemmas in his life are, “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?” The paranoia that pumps through Prufrock’s life leads all the way up until his death, which is where the possibility of an open ending comes in. This might be a stretch, because it’s definite that Prufrock died by the poem’s conclusion, but sides could be taken concerning how he stopped breathing. Did his nervous habits drive him to cut his life short, or was he forced to live his life in torturous solitude until he died of old age? The latter possibility could be decided upon due to the mentioning of “I grow old…I grow old…/I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” This could be considered as a half-open, half-closed ending, if such a thing exists. Eliot did indeed decide that his Prufrock was not fit to live, but his way of death is somewhat open to interpretation.