Time and the Love Song by J. Alfred PrufrockPericles once said "Be governed by time, the wisest counselor of all." This past ruler may not have had today's technology, but he did not need it to recognize the dominant nature of time over all humanity. Whatever progress man makes, he will never be able to slow down time or stop it completely; nor does it seem like he will be able to leap into the past or future. Time is something that man cannot manipulate, instead it manipulates man. No poem illustrates this point better than T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Prufrock is trapped in the riddle of time because no matter what he does, he always regresses back to his starting point. His life is reduced to a diurnal cycle of monotonous chores that seem dictated by time. Prufrock's "decisions and revisions" are boring and monotonous; in a sense, he has no free will. His lack of self-control can be clearly seen in his circular journey through the poem: he begins his journey by conforming to time, makes a meager attempt to upset the invariability of everyday life, and finds himself once again hopelessly bound by time to his habits. trends.In this poem, time takes on a distinct meaning. Instead of simply being an external object with no control over man, Eliot elevates the significance of this foreign object to a new level. The time given to the speaker can be equated with his actions. Every day he is given a certain amount of time, and day after day he is ready to "spit out the bottom of [his] ways" (Eliot 2461) at the end of his bland day. The frustration that Prufrock accumulates is caused by the boring repetition of his actions. He also feels like he can't escape...... middle of paper......gle newspaper: we can't control the weather. No matter how much technology humanity achieves, it is unlikely that we will ever get to a point in history where time does not limit us in some way. The importance of this fact lies in its acceptance by man. Once we are able to understand our mastery over time, we will be able to live in harmony with it, using all this precious quantity that is granted to us. Works Cited Eliot, TS. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. MH Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996. 2459-2463.Pinion, F. B. A T. S. Eliot Companion. Totowa: Barnes & Noble Books, 1986. Sharma, Jitendra Kumar. Time and T. S. Eliot: his poetry, plays and philosophy. New York: Apt Books, INC. 1985. Spurr, David. Conflicts in Consciousness: The Poetry and Criticism of T. S. Eliot. Urbana: University of Illinois P. 1984.