Question 3- Alfred Prufrock and "Promise"

Dane Nicolas

Professor Amy Fountain

ENL 10C

16 April 2018

Blog post 1: Question 3- Alfred Prufrock and “Promise”

            Youthful angst is a very relatable emotion which almost everyone has experienced. The expression of youthful angst has a long history in art and is a very popular genre. In 1920, T. S. Eliot’s wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock where he articulated this powerful feeling. In his poem, a young man decides to go out for a night of fun and attends a party where he feels the strains of this angst. Eliot’s poem follows this young man’s thoughts and emotions as he struggles to enjoy this social event. Similarly, this theme of youthful angst is still quite popular in more modern music. In 1999, Eve 6 released “Promise” which shares the same theme of youthful angst and their expression of this emotion. This song also portrays a young man’s night as it begins and the same flow of thought and emotion that is coupled with it. T. S. Eliot and Eve 6 both portray the theme of youth angst in their protagonist’s own attack and belittlement of his own self-image.

             Eliot quickly introduces Prufrock as a young man in London who finally feels he is prepared for the night ahead of him. As he arrives at the party he quickly turns on himself and attacks his own physical appearance when debating whether or not to socialize at the party, “To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’… With a bald spot in the middle of my hair”. (Eliot 14) When faced with the challenge of social interaction, Prufrock quickly and thoroughly questions his own ability and right to approach anyone. Prufrock likely isolating himself in a corner of the party, immediately questions whether or not he has the courage to even approach these people. Eliot’s use of the repeating ‘Do I dare’ emphasizes his thought loop as he repeatedly runs through this question. This lack of confidence is rooted in his own appearance and his thinning hair, which he feels the most subconscious about referencing it through out the poem. Just as in these lines, the poem continues to express Prufrock’s lack of self-confidence and demonstrates the feeling of angst as he slowly picks himself apart. Seventy-nine years later, this powerful theme of Prufrock’s youthful angst is quite similar to the protagonist in “Promise”.

Eve 6 portrays a similar story of a gentlemen finally prepared for his night as he quickly attacks his own ability, “I spit and stutter stuff and clutter, Worries in my worried corner, Maladjusted… Red as a newborn white as a corpse”. The protagonist also quickly questions his own social skills as he enters the party. Quickly attacking his nervous tendency to stutter and choke on his words when engaging in new social interactions. Similar to Prufrock, Eve 6’s character worries and isolates himself in a corner of the party while questioning his own ability and right to engage in the party’s interactions. During this questioning he quickly assumes he is ‘maladjusted’, which attacks his own social skills in this kind of situation. This leads to the end of the quotation and a repeating line in the song. When referencing ‘red as a newborn white as a corpse’, the protagonist is referencing his physical appearance when thinking of and implementing his approach. First the redness roots in his embarrassment and the flush he is experiencing during the thought of this interaction. The newborn also portrays his innocence and inexperience in these situations, demonstrating his inability to partake. Then the color white references his nervousness and the corpse articulates this feeling as a killer. This cleverly demonstrates the inability for a dead body to interact, depicting his frozen state due to his intense social anxiety. This song uses similar imagery to Eliot in the depiction of this young man’s struggle.

Through different forms of media, T. S. Eliot and Eve 6 both articulate the powerful theme of youthful angst with their protagonists' attack on their own self-image. These authors both express the powerful emotion of this angst and successfully paint a very relatable picture of this struggle. These artists depiction of angst clearly articulates that this feeling is nothing new and has been a powerful force through modern history. This demonstrates a hope for anyone who struggles with this emotion. These forms of expression show that this feeling is common and will end, belittling the power of this intense anxiety. I found it rather interesting that this expression is nothing new to the more modern world but can be seen almost a century ago.