T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock depicts the thoughts of a modern, urban man who is trying to express his feelings to a woman, but feels trapped due to his fear of being a disgrace in society. Two methods that Eliot uses to convey this theme are through his use of repetition and his sporadic rhyming style.
             Contrary to what the title implies, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is anything but a love song. It is instead quite the opposite. Prufrock is an older gentleman who views his everyday life as being vacant, black, and repetitive. Early on in the poem, Prufrock describes an evening with phrases that insinuate melancholy and depression. In line six of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Prufrock describes the night as "restless" and says that the streets are "tedious arguments of insidious intent." From this, the reader can infer a certain discontentment that Prufrock has with his surroundings. As the poem continues, Prufrock describes his desire to court a lady who is within his social group. He even starts to conjure up ideas about what he will say to her when he finally confesses his true feelings. Prufrock stops this almost immediately because he feels that he is plain and ordinary. He is also afraid of rejection, and what the other members of his social group will think. After Prufrock is unable to gain the courage to speak out, he begins to dwell on whether or not it would have been worth it. Prufrock starts to criticize himself because he is conforming to the society that he is so unhappy with. In the end, Prufrock decides that to live life, people must try to make their dreams come true. If they believe the "voice of reason" and give up, this is the only way they can truly fail.
             Repetition plays a crucial role in conveying the theme of insignificance. T.S. Eliot uses repetition a great number of times. He not only uses repetition within the actual stanzas, but he also uses them between ot...