THE ROLE OF SOUND PATTERNS AND IMAGERY IN T. S. ELIOT’S THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK: A STYLISTIC PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The article makes an in-depth stylistic analysis of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot, with emphasis on poetic use of sound effect and imagery, as expressed by the author of his alienation, psychological anxiety, and modern identity. Adopting a qualitative, textual stylistic method, the study examines the linguistic processes used by Eliot to construct meaning and emotion; it combines both the skills of analysis offered by linguistics, together with the interpretational rigour of a literary approach. In this very stylistic schema, the study focuses on the way Eliot uses the tools of the irregular rhythm, metrical variation, alliteration, assonance, repetition, and rhyme to reflect the inward disintegration and emotional standstill of the speaker. The analysis discloses that such sound patterns are not the decorum but the inseparable part of the expression of indecisiveness, social insecurity, and obsessive introspection of Prufrock. Besides this, there is an analysis of the rich visual and symbolic imagery; urban, mythological, body and fragmented imagery of Eliot which seeks to exteriorise the inner displacement of the speaker as well as to criticize the breakdown of identity in the contemporary world. With this kaleidoscope of voices and image, Eliot builds a psychological and emotional world of modern person at once aware yet helplessly unable to connect, at once interested and blinded by self-doubt. This is also an appropriate avenue of further research as the combination of interdisciplinary, comparison styles and digital analytical tools are proposed to enhance the knowledge. To sum up, the paper therefore agrees with the research findings that the stylistic decisions of Eliot in the Prufrock are a sonic and visual metaphor of the modern existential crisis and therefore that the poem is a deep reflection of the fragmented consciousness in literature at the beginning of twentieth century.