Blog Post 1: TS Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in Bates Motel

     The final lines of TS Eliot's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, "We have lingered... we drown", reinforces the reader's active role in the poem by repeating the term "we." This "we," consisting of either the reader and Prufrock or the reader and some other unknown entity, causes the ending of the poem to be unclear. The ambiguous ending of TS Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is repeated in one of Norman Bates' hallucinations of a teacher he recently killed in the first episode of season three of Bates Motel. By having Norman Bates hallucinate that Miss. Blair Williams is saying the final three lines of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the director of Bates Motel insinuates that the final lines of the poem have a sinister tone of death-induced despair rather than a harmless expression of youthful angst.
     Similarly to TS Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, Bates Motel addresses several modernist concepts; there is break from the traditional way of thinking, a stream of consciousness, alienation, and an overall decline of moral values. Norman Bates, the show’s protagonist, is a lonely teenager who is unable to effectively socialize with the other characters. This alienation is the result of his declining moral value; throughout the first two seasons, Norman’s psychotic tendencies cause him to play a large role in three murders. His conflicting emotions regarding his actions, especially once he realizes he murdered Miss. Blair Wilson, takes the form of hallucinations of the people he has killed. A similar line of thought can be applied to Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Like Norman, Prufrock experiences social anxiety that is caused by his isolation from those at the dinner party. His strange tendencies, such as noticing the brownish-hair on women’s arms, allow him to subjectively depict a superficial society of women talking of Michelangelo. Prufrock’s dilemma regarding whether or not he should talk to a beautiful woman manifests itself into a stream of consciousness. This break from reality allows readers to see into Prufrock’s mind, just as viewers are able to see Norman’s deeper feelings by analyzing his hallucinations. The presence of modernist ideas, such as social isolation and breaks from reality, makes it difficult for readers and viewers to analyze the final lines of the poem in relevance to Norman’s or Prufrock’s experiences.
     Like TS Eliot, the director of Bates Motel does not define who is a part of the “we” mentioned in the lines “We have lingered… we drown.” It is assumed that the viewers and the speaker (Norman Bates) are a portion of that “we”; however, viewers are uncertain as to whether Miss. Blair Wilson, who actually spoke the words, is a part of the “we.” If Norman is experiencing flashbacks of the past, then it can be assumed that Miss. Blair Wilson is a part of the “we” because it would indicate that Miss. Blair Wilson actually said the words to Norman. This interpretation would indicate that the singing mermaids represent Norman’s inner demons and that the “chambers of the sea” symbolizes Norman’s mind. Miss. Blair Wilson, the viewers, and Norman himself are falling victim to Norman’s inner demons, causing us to “drown.” This metaphorical “drown[ing]” in Norman’s thoughts is depicted by the cut scene of Miss. Blair Wilson’s neck being cut. This reminds the audience of Norman’s break from reality; Norman slit his teacher’s neck in a violent hallucination that he previously did not remember. This break from reality can be seen as the director’s interpretation of the viewers “linger[ing] in the chambers of the sea,” or being just as unable as Norman was to see that he murdered his teacher. The “human voices that wake us” refers to the actions that led to Norman’s realization that he murdered his teacher. Norman’s recognition of these actions is shown when he violently breaks out of his hallucination in a panicked daze and sprints out of the cafeteria. The Bates Motel interpretation of Prufrock resembles the conventional interpretation of Eliot’s version of Prufrock; Eliot’s Prufrock is unable to hear the mermaids (or Sirens) singing to him because he and the readers have experienced such a great break away from society that we metaphorically “drown” in Prufrock’s sorrows. This metaphorical death creates a tone of youthful angst by emphasizing Norman’s break from reality and social isolation. The idea that the words can also be associated with Miss. Blair Wilson’s literal death, however, forces readers to interpret the lines as having a far more sinister tone.