Analysis of the motif of frustration in the Snows of Kilimanjaro and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
...ardship of the Great War, this quote makes the criticism of society being too immersed in their own status and image. During a time where human beings were dying by the hundreds of thousands, one might think that there would be more important subjects to discuss rather than some aristocratic artist who died hundreds of years ago. This is the foundation of Mr. Prufrock’s frustration. To him, it is almost as if society cannot see past its own image and its frivolous complexities of the social hierarchy. Rather than being concerned with what life really is about, the members of his socio-economic class are much more concerned with how they look and act, “talking of Michelangelo” as if they were intelligent and had something meaningful to say. We get this impression from the lines that continue in the poem, “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…” (Eliot, 1145). While it is unclear what exactly the yellow fog is, one might deduce from the era in which Eliot lived and wrote that the yellow fog was an allusion to the yellow mustard gas used by the Germans during World War One. Eliot uses this fog or gas as a contrast to the “upper class” women who sit and gossip all day to improve their image. While they are sitting muttering on about frivolous topics, the war is raging on and on, and is beginning to spill over into civilized society, hence the mustard gas at the window-panes. All of this, this lack of interest in life, is what is beginning to gnaw at the edges of Prufrock’s personality and patients. Next, Prufrock rambles on about one subject and then quickly jumping to another, struggling with the superficialities that he began to describe for us earlier in the piece. He comments, “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 – (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….” (Eliot, 1146) At first, one might assume that he has simply discarded all of the commentary he had just made about society earlier in his poem. After all, he uses this entire paragraph just to show us that he is indeed a gentleman, an individual with class who KNOWS he has class. Perhaps Eliot is not simply just writing this for the reader’s knowledge of how Prufrock looks and dresses, but it could be more akin to the wonder that most humans experience as to how they have lived their lives. At some point, many of us wonder what it would be like to turn back the clock and to see what changes we could have made to ourselves. After all, it seems clear that Prufrock is disappointed with how he looks and what he has to show for his life’s work. He states “Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” (Eliot, 1146) We have determined that he is disgusted and frustrated with life, and the point of this passage is now becoming clearer. If there is time for “decisions and revisions”, then perhaps one might infer that Prufrock is contemplating the actions of his life, wondering if he had done things differently what might have happened in the course of human events. This is the bulk of Prufrock’s main idea, the frustration with his current life, and the wonder of what things would be like if he had lived his life differently. For all of his criticism of life and of the society he lives in, Prufrock is also struggling to attain or fulfill a desire he has for his life. That desire is not explicitly told to the reader; however, Eliot alludes to that desire throughout the entirety of the poem. I believe that desire can best be summarized as the desire to make our lives worthy and meaningful. Prufrock does not want his life to have been all about meaningless banter and superficiality. He states his desire in the form of a question, asking rhetorically if all the possessions and meaningless items he has in his life were really all that important. “And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, 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 threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 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.’” (Eliot, 1147) Prufrock is not happy with his life, and his desire to make something of his life seems unfulfilled. All the material possessions and the money and fame are not what life is about. “That is not it at all.” Harry, the protagonist featured in Snows of Kilimanjaro, endures a somewhat similar struggle with the tale of Mr. Prufrock, and while both characters have to suffer through markedly different physical struggles, the important fact is that they both come to contemplate the value and worth of their lives. While Prufrock whines about how unfair and how superficial life is, Harry is struggling with a much different physical situation. He is trying to tackle life and death. He is attempting to cope with what will soon become his final hours, something that all of us will have to endure at some point in our lives. The plot of this story is quite different from that of the Prufrock. Yet, what binds these two characters together is the simple fact that like Prufrock, Harry feels that most of his life has been a waste. He has not seized upon the opportunities presented to him, and as one can see with the banter he has with his wife, really does not care about the things that should be important to a person. In the story, we see Harry go through ...