Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot... Internal monologue...

T.S. Eliot was greatly influenced by many different writers, whose ideas are partly found, in his poem "The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock" "Prufrock." His passion for the French Symbolists, like Mallarme, Rimbaud, and Baudelaire was without a doubt pushing him to write the way he was. He uses a sensuous language and has an eye for unnerving detail that nevertheless contributes to the overall beauty of his writing style. The "yellow smoke" (24) and the "arms that are bracelet and white and bare (but in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)" (63-64) are perfect example of his tendency to stress on little details to make his readers even more into the scene.
The poem is an internal monologue where Prufrock reveals himself as lonely and timid. Prufrock is a man in conflict with his duality, the society he has to live in, and the long lost dreams of his youth. Hot and cold, fire and water; duality is part of nature. Prufrock is not in harmony with his two sides. On the surface Prufrock is like a field mouse, frozen by fear who asks, "Do I dare? And Do I dare?" (38) Inside is a tiger that knows there is time to "murder and create." (28) I feel like Prufrock is a tiger in the body of a mouse. Prufrock fears he is not able to meet society’s standard. He fears society will have him "pinned and wriggling on the wall." (58) J. Alfred Prufrock is afraid, not only of what they will say, but how society will look at him. He is extremely concerned with his self-image. Prufrock’s inner tiger wants to be "riding seaward on the waves" (125) and experience the passion of his young age. He is aroused by the perfume from a dress, but is held back by fear. Now, he only dreams of "one night cheap hotels," (6) because he knows those times are past. He has seen his life pass by, little by little, and knows death is awaiting him; laughing at a life half lived. You should not have any regrets or be scared of something you did not accomplish otherwise it leads to the well known "midlife crisis" that no one wishes to experience.
"Prufrock" ends with the hero assigning himself a role: While he claims not to want to be Hamlet, he may yet be useful and important as "an attendant lord, one that will do / To swell a progress, start a scene or two." (112-113)This implies that there is a "follow-through" between Shakespeare's world and ours, that Hamlet is still relevant to us and that we are still part of a world that could reproduce the intensity of Shakespeare's plays. Eliot implicitly suggests, however, that as an "attendant lord" maybe he can become another Hamlet. "Prufrock" ends with a devaluation of its hero. The last line of the poem suggests that when the world intrudes, when "human voices wake us," (131) the dream is shattered: "we drown." (131) With this single line, Eliot dismantles the romantic notion that poetic genius is all that is needed to triumph over the destructive, impersonal forces of the modern world. In reality, Eliot shows that he is a little better than his creation: He differs from Prufrock only by retaining a bit of hubris, which shows through from time to time. The poem, an internal monologue, reveals the timidity,loneliness, and sadness of J. Alfred Prufrock