Prufrock Assignment
From The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock…
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
While this is one of the poem’s shorter stanzas, the imagery is vivid enough to create a solitary mood. It begins by painting a scene of the man walking down a lonely street, even though it is very clearly populated. The words dusk and narrow both create the idea that it is a darker, more lonesome moment. This dark imagery continues with the mention of smoke rising from the pipes. Smoke is a traditional symbol of darkness, a darkness that is in this case akin to loneliness. This smoke is coming from the pipes of men in situations similar to the narrator, lonely men whose only action that is known to us is to lean out of a window. This mystery adds to the detached nature of the stanza, and thus adds to its solitary mood.
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