What are the two allusion in The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock?

For example, Prufrock was compared to John the Baptist, Lazarus and Hamlet. These allusions displays Prufrock’s intense self-depreciation. The following lines “Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, / I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;” alludes to the Bible.

What does this allusion reveal about Prufrock?

What does this allusion reveal about Prufrock? In the context of the poem, this allusion suggests that Prufrock either thinks or once thought of himself as a dead man, but that his love interest changes that. This unfortunately doesn’t help with his social anxiety.

Why is John the Baptist head on a plate?

But after his stepdaughter danced for him at his birthday party, he offered to give her anything she desired. Prompted by her mother, who resented John’s judgment of her marriage, Herodias’ daughter requested the head of John the Baptist on a platter.

How is Prufrock like John the Baptist?

The allusion to the story of John the Baptist appears in a stanza in which Prufrock describes the effort he has expended to try to change and grow beyond his limitations. He says “I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed.” The point is that John the Baptist is beheaded because of his fearless honesty.

What does Etherized upon a table mean?

The imagery of this invitation begins with a startling simile, “Let us go then you and I/ When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherised upon a table.” This simile literally describes the evening sky, but functions on another level.

What literary device is most clearly used in this passage I am Lazarus?

The rhetorical device in the phrase “I am Lazarus, come from the dead” in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is allusion. An allusion is a reference to another work or a historical event, place, object, or person.

Who ordered John the Baptists head?

Herodias
What is Salome known for? Salome is known in the Christian Gospels for her role in the execution of John the Baptist. When Herod Antipas offered to fulfill a request after she danced for him, Herodias, Salome’s mother, urged her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, who had opposed Herodias’s marriage to Herod.

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

What is the overwhelming question Prufrock wants to ask?

Prufrock wonders if he should have put his all into answering the “overwhelming question” of the truth of life. Scholars and critics alike agree that the “overwhelming question” that is the focus of all of Prufrock’s ponderings in the poem is most likely a marriage proposal, or a question of a woman’s feelings for him.

What is Prufrock’s biggest worry?

Prufrock’s main concern is that he is frittering his life away with meaningless activities while longing to do better things. He worries about the contrast between the sordid everyday world he inhabits and the world of imagination–of mermaids riding on the foam–that his heart yearns for.