questions and worries This is why the poem is called an interior monologue Prufrock s Hesitation and Self-Doubt The whole poem shows Prufrock s lack of confidence He wants to propose his love or express his feelings but he cannot He keeps asking Do I dare How should I presume These repeated questions show how he hesitates and doubts himself He is very conscious of his appearance He thinks others will laugh at his bald spot or his thin arms and legs His mind is filled with fear of rejection Through this Eliot presents his inner voice in a dramatic way Memories and Regrets Prufrock also remembers his past life He says I have measured out my life with coffee spoons This means his life has been dull repetitive and without real achievement He feels that his great moment has already passed These are not spoken to others but admitted to himself in a tone of regret The monologue reveals his deep loneliness and sense of wasted time His Desire and His Failure Prufrock wishes to break free and express his feelings strongly He imagines himself like Lazarus who returns from the dead to tell the truth But even in his imagination he fears rejection He imagines that the woman he wants to propose to will reject him In the end he admits that he is not a hero like Hamlet but only a minor character He says No I am not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be The poem shows how his dreams collapse under his own fear His monologue is full of longing but he fails to act Imagery and Stream of Consciousness The poem uses images to show the movements of Prufrock s mind The yellow fog moving like a cat the mermaids singing and the human voices that wake us and we drown are all dreamlike pictures of his feelings Eliot uses the modernist technique of stream of consciousness This style lets us follow Prufrock s shifting thoughts His thoughts shift from city streets to rooms with women talking from biblical images to day-to-day worries This mixture creates the true sense of interior monologue In conclusion Eliot s The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock is a perfect example of an interior monologue It does not tell a story of action but presents the broken doubtful and hesitant voice of Prufrock s mind His fears regrets and self-mockery show the life of a modern man who cannot express himself Through Prufrock s inner speech Eliot makes us feel the loneliness and weakness of the modern age