What is the "Overwhelming Question" in” The Love song of J. Alfred Profrock "?

The Love song of J. Alfred Profrock

(Overwhelming question)

Q. In the context of Dante's Inferno epigram, what is the "overwhelming question" in” The Love song of J. Alfred Profrock "?

Answer: The Love song of J. Alfred Profrock was the first important publication of T. S. Elliott and is often referred to as the first masterpiece of modernity in English. It represented an instant break in the lyrical ballads (1798) of English romantic poets, such as Coleridge and Wordsworth.

The speaker mentioned a question, an irresistible question, but he did not want to talk about it. And since the question is never asked in the poem, the answer is never given. We also learned that they were going to pay a visit to a place where women were talking about Michelangelo. After thinking of visiting the women, the speaker returns to a smattering of streets, foggy, beautifully described as a cat that falls asleep. It seems that Profrock has lost sight of the city and he is getting time from the society in which he is waiting for her, from which women are talking about Michelangelo.

The polite image suggests Profrock's mental state, his desire for inaction, his indecision, his passivity, and his reluctance to ask irresistible questions. Scholars and critics all agree that the "irresistible question" at the center of all of Profrock's considerations in poetry is perhaps the marriage proposal, or the question of a woman's feelings for him. He obviously cares for a woman, is intimidated by her, spends time with her and wants to speak his heart to her. She either wants to propose and get an answer, or express her love for him and express how he feels for her. If someone is in a situation where they care deeply about someone and are unsure about the person's feelings for them, they may relate the matter to his or her paranoia, obsession, and fear.

The poem is published in the context of Dante's Inferno; it refers to a person who sincerely apologizes before committing a crime. This may be tied to Profrock's question, as he wants to be able to guess the woman's answer before ever asking the question. He does not want to ask questions until he is sure of his positive response; if he asks, and gets a negative response, it will be very destructive for him to handle it. She will not recover. As Dante's lines say, "Since no one came back alive from this depth," Profrock feared that he would never return alive after receiving a negative answer from him. She fears his answer; The whole poem seeks to dare to ask him, but he fears that once he has "disrupted the universe," as he writes in the poem, he will sigh and say, "That's not what I meant at all / not at all," referring to his guess. That he took care of her.

In the end, he decided it was not worth asking. One should not risk taking any name from him, his refusal. He finds the chicken and resolves himself with the decision that he is somewhat cowardly, and he will forever be one of those people who watch from afar and never take part in the pleasures that he wishes.

*****

👉 Rassundari Devi’s 'My Life (Amar Jiban)' as the first autobiography by a Bengali

👉 Eunice De Souza's poem, ‘Bequest’: theme of loss, alienation, and isolation

👉 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys: Role of Parent-Child Relationships

👉 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: subversion of traditional gender norms

👉 Look Back in Anger: Osborne’s use of symbols

👉 ‘The Second Coming’ by William Butler Yeats: Significance of the title

👉 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock: Prufrock as an anti-hero being trapped

👉 Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh: Significance of the arrival of the train

👉 The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh: Portrayal of the newly formed nation-states