Evolution of Attitude in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by Eliot Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayT. S. Eliot's famously opaque “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” can only be interpreted by recognizing that the speaker's thought process is not consistent throughout but is an ongoing process. At first reading, the poem's stanzas appear to belong to separate plots or lines of thought, but the unity can be perceived if we think of the poem's structure as reflective of the speaker's developing mental state, with some stanzas being longer that represent the elaboration of an attitude, and other shorter groups of lines that describe an epiphanous or particularly problematic moment that precipitates a change in the speaker's attitude. The progression of the speaker's attitude is as follows: the speaker first believes that it is useless to investigate meaning, then reflects on whether he could create meaning by doing something great, decides that it is too late to do something great, wonders whether it would be worth worth doing something meaningful, and ultimately decides that there was no meaning to be found after all. The first indication of the speaker's attitude comes early when he compares the evening to "a patient etherized on a table" (3) and attributes "insidious intentions" (9) to "Roads that follow each other like a boring argument." The attitude evident here is one of aimlessness and cynicism, two attitudes that lead the speaker to “…an overwhelming question.” (10) The question "What is it?" ?” and often addressed to a solitary sage on a mountaintop. The end of the first stanza gives a preview of what will be the speaker's final decision as he represses the question (11) choosing instead to distract himself by making a sort of "visit". (12) The visits mentioned so far by the speaker concern "cheap hotels for one night" (6) and "sawdust restaurants" (7), places where you can find entertainment to distract yourself, fun, in the etymological sense of the word, if you like. This is an interesting twist on the age-old question of what it is; instead of giving an answer or even saying that it is impossible to answer, the speaker seems to imply that it is not productive to ask or even, as he will later state, that it is dangerous to consider. The refrain: “In the room the women come and go/Talking about Michelangelo” (13-14), perhaps indicates a moment of cynicism that captures the essence of Prufrock's problem. He extends his appreciation of the monotony of daily life and social callings to things that those around him consider important. The poem places these two lines in its own stanza to highlight the speaker's attitude towards them. A general sense of contempt seems to emerge as the speaker realizes the futility of mindless conversation and socializing, all a distraction from questions that have real meaning or perhaps the significant question. In the third stanza a problem arises of interpretation of the literal meaning. this will continue to be annoying for two whole verses. The speaker begins to talk about a yellow fog that could be interpreted as pollution (the poem has already alluded to city life several times), actual fog, or some other unknown phenomenon that resembles yellow fog. Maybe the fog is real or maybe not, the true meaning of the poem's meaning lies in the ability of each of these manifestations of fog to cloud the speaker's mind. The fog could be an exact description of what the speaker decided to do at the end of the first stanza, distract himself from.