“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot is an ironic depiction of a man's inability to take decisive action in a modern society devoid of meaningful human connections. The poem reinforces its central idea through fragmentation techniques and through the use of Eliot's commentary on Prufrock's social world. Using a series of natural images, Eliot uses fragmentation to show Prufrock's inability to act, as well as his fear of society. Eliot's commentary on Prufrock's social world is also evident throughout. Nowhere in the poem has Prufrock confessed his love, even though it is titled "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", but through this poem, T. S. Eliot expresses his social commentary on the world Prufrock lives in. Prufrock's social world is initially revealed as he takes the reader on a journey. Through lines 1-36, the reader travels with Prufrock through the modern city and its streets as we experience Prufrock's life and explore our surroundings through his eyes. From the beginning, the city is depicted as squalid and empty, with no signs of happiness. The setting as Prufrock walks down the street appears to be polluted, dirty and dilapidated, as if it were the business side of the city, giving the feeling that it is lifeless, still, eerie, sleepy and unconscious. Eliot uses images, from the skyline to the half-deserted streets, from cheap hotels to sawdust restaurants, to demonstrate the loneliness and alienation that the city possesses. The city where Prufrock resides is, in a way, a shadow of who he is as a person, and the images of the city speak to a part of his personality. Just as the skyline is described as “an etherized patient on a table” (3), it foreshadows and suggests that Prufrock has a… middle of paper… no memory of the social world would drown him. Strengthening the poem's central idea through fragmentation techniques and through Eliot's commentary on Prufrock's social world, T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is about a man in a human connection that undoes the incapacity of modern society to take decisive action. Through Eliot's fragmentation, Prufrock's social world is seen as messy, empty, repetitive, chaotic, judgmental, isolated and a couple of others, but despite this, he has painted a good portrait of society and has a good sense of society in where Prufrock lives. Works Cited Eliot, TS “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The Longman Anthology of World Literature: Volume F: The Twentieth Century. 2nd ed. Djelal Kadir and Ursula K. Heise. Toronto: Pearson Longman, 2009. 221-24.