Eliot's Prufrock and Radiohead's Paranoid Android

Aiken Tong

ENL 10C

Blog Post 1

            In T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, the speaker, Prufrock, addresses an unidentified subject, speaking through a dramatic monologue about his existential experience in modern society. He is upset with said existence, as his monologue is filled with his laments on the listless repetitiveness of his social interactions as well as his neurotic anxiety of being scrutinized by other people. Similarly, in the Radiohead song “Paranoid Android” from their 1997 album “OK, Computer”, the conflict between self and society is highly emphasized, where narrator of the song experiences crises of angst and overwhelming ennui closely mirroring that experienced by Eliot’s protagonist, Prufock. In their respective portrayal of what is essentially the stream of consciousness of socially awkward characters and their distorted perceptions of social interaction, each work makes use of subversive imagery and self-conscious internal monologue to express the ennui of the characters and explore the roots of its cause.

In their respective works, both Eliot and Radiohead distinguish their protagonists as iconoclasts through their subversive perspectives of the world, resulting in thei unique use of imagery. Subversive imagery is employed to jarring effect in the first stanza of “Prufrock”. In describing the setting of the poem, Eliot likens the evening sky to “a patient etherized upon a table” while highlighting only the “one-night cheap hotels” and “sawdust restaurants” of the city, hence eschewing traditional imagery of positive or negative connotations, and opting for a jarring and cynical perspective which characterizes Prufrock as somewhat of a misfit. Rather than the beauty which one might normally attribute to the night sky, Prufrock feels only numbness, much like an etherized patient, by virtue of its unchanging and repetitive occurrence. Furthermore, while this stanza is structured as an invitation to someone (presumably a romantic partner) to go with Prufrock, he discards all pretense and tact and makes direct sexual references such as the “cheap hotels” and “oysters” (an aphrodisiac) to proposition his subject, which he later reinforces with an allusion to Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”. Thus, through his own description of the world, Prufrock is established as someone who rebels against the coyness of society’s customs out of angst over the sameness they produce within everyday life. Similarly, in “Paranoid Android”, the isolation of the protagonist’s ideals in relation to societal norms is shown to produce a unique perspective, though unlike in “Prufrock”, the narrator of “Paranoid Android” is more openly antagonistic towards the society they reject, and the imagery used is much more direct. Throughout the song, the narrator conjures some bizarre and unsettling imagery in describing the world in the people populating it. In one instance, in the most direct reference to their ennui, the narrator asks “Please, could you stop the noise” in the first line of the song, as they are trying to escape the “unborn chicken voices in my head”. The narrator is a socially alienated individual, as shown in the accompanying music video of the song, and therefore “you” could be interpreted to be directed at society in general, rather than a single subject. The first verse of the song can thus be interpreted as the narrator imploring society to stop trying to make him conform to their noise, as the notion of being a part of a community is like the sound of “unborn chicken voices” in his head. As disturbing as this imagery is to the reader, it is precisely the alienation and ennui the narrator harbours toward society.

After establishing their respective protagonists as misfits, Eliot and Radiohead explore the root cause of their ennui through the portrayal of their anxiety through stream of consciousness. In the sixth stanza of Eliot’s poem, Prufrock is shown to be plagued by his neurotic insecurities. He is completely lacking in confidence because of his own perceived imperfections such as his hair and limbs, and his fear of how other people will judge him based on it, which leads him to constantly doubt and second guess himself, even within a single minute. He is extremely self-conscious about himself within social situations as well as his lack of social skills, and thus he sees everything he does as an imposition upon “the universe”. Prufrock’s ennui is therefore shown not to be borne out of a disillusionment with society, but due to his inherent inability to function among other people. The anxiety of stream of consciousness is similarly used in the third verse of “Paranoid Android”, where, seemingly in reference to their own perceived insignificance, the narrator yells the lines “You don't remember/ You don't remember/ Why don't you remember my name?”, and their panic and embarrassment is then reflected in the discordant and frantic guitar in the instrumental bridge of the song. The inherent alienation of the narrator is also displayed in the music video, where the meek yet somewhat normal main character is juxtaposed with the surreal and grotesque world and characters he is surrounded by.