Evolution of Attitude in Eliot's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Say No to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayT. S. Eliot's famous opaque song, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," can only be interpreted by recognizing that the speaker's thought process is not coherent throughout. 'other but that it is an ongoing process. On first reading, the poem's stanzas appear to belong to distinct plots or lines of thought, but unity can be seen if one views the structure of the poem as reflecting the developing mental state of the speaker, some longer stanzas representing the treatment. of an attitude and other shorter groups of lines describing an epiphanic or particularly problematic moment precipitating a change in the speaker's attitude. The evolution of the speaker's attitude is as follows: the speaker first believes that it is useless to question the meaning, he then wonders if he could create meaning by doing something great , he decides it's too late for him to do something big, he wonders if it could have been worth doing something meaningful, and ultimately he decides there was no meaning to be found after all. The first clue to the speaker's attitude comes early when he compares the evening to "a patient etherized on a table" (3) and attributes an "insidious intention" (9) to the "streets which follow one another like a tedious dispute.” The apparent attitude here is one of aimlessness and cynicism, two attitudes that lead the speaker to "...a damning question." (10) The question “What is it?” " (11) refers to probably the most worrying question of all, that of knowing where the meaning of ordinary existence can be found, commonly formulated as: "What is the meaning of life? ?" and often entrusted to a solitary sage on a mountaintop. The end of the first stanza provides insight into the speaker's final decision as he represses the question (11), choosing instead to distract himself by performing a kind of “tour”. (12) The visits the speaker has mentioned so far have been to “cheap overnight hotels” (6) and “sawdust restaurants” (7), places where he can find entertainment to distract himself, to have fun, in the etymological sense of the word, if you will. 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 later says, that it is dangerous; to think. women come and go/Speaking of Michelangelo" (13-14), perhaps indicates a moment of cynicism that captures the essence of Prufrock's problem. He extends his evaluation of the monotony of everyday life and social calls to things that those around him consider important. The poem places these two lines in their own stanza to highlight the speaker's attitude toward them. A feeling of general disdain seems to arise as the speaker realizes the futility of mindless conversation and socializing, all of which is a distraction from matters that have real meaning or perhaps the question significant. A problem of interpretation of the literal meaning arises in the third stanza. this will continue to be vexing for two entire stanzas. The speaker begins to speak of a yellow fog which could be interpreted as pollution (the poem has already alluded to urban life several times),.