Figures of speech include words and phrases that have figurative, as well as literal, meaning. They include similes and metaphors, which are typically identified with the words "like" and "as," respectively. So in Prufrock, any comparison that uses like or as is a figure of speech. One of the most famous examples is in the opening line:
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Another type of figure of speech is personification—speaking of an animal or object or idea as if it were a person. See the sections on "yellow fog" and the "peacefully sleeping" afternoon, and the line about the "eternal footman." Still another figure of speech is a rhetorical question. This is a question used for dramatic effect, in which no answer is expected. Look for the question marks in Prufrock. Are the questions intended to be answered?
Hyperbole is still another figure of speech. Hyperbole is a deliberate exaggeration, such as, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." At one point in Prufrock, the speaker writes, "I have measured out my life in coffee spoons." Could that be hyperbole? Can you find other examples?
Yet another figure of speech employed liberally in Prufock is called synecdoche, which is the use of part of something to imply the whole. Check out the consecutive stanzas that begin, "I have known the eyes already" and "I have known the arms already."
Metonymy is figure of speech that involves invoking the name of one thing for another thing that's closely related. What does the poet mean when he writes, "No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be"?
http://www.aquestionofexistence.com/Aquestionofexistence/Poetry_Selections_files/Expressing%20Poems%20I.pdf
https://www.britannica.com/art/figure-of-speech
The speaker uses similes to compare the "evening . . . spread out against the sky" to "a patient etherized upon a table" and to depict "Streets that follow like a tedious argument / Of insidious intent." Similes compare two unalike things using the words like or as.
The speaker uses a metaphor to compare the "yellow fog" to a kind of animal that might rub "its back upon the window-panes," rub "its muzzle on the window-panes," or lick "its tongue into the corners of the evening." This animal (the fog) "fall[s] upon its back" and makes a "sudden leap," then curls "around the house" and falls "asleep." A metaphor is a comparison of two unalike things where one thing is said to be another.
The speaker says that "there will be time / To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet," and he seems to be describing figurative masks that each person wears: another metaphor. The speaker uses a further metaphor to compare his life to something one might measure "with coffee spoons," as though his life is as mundane and ordinary as grains of sugar. Another metaphor compares the speaker to a bug that has been captured and catalogued; he describes being "pinned and wriggling on the wall" like such a specimen.
He also says, "And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!" personifying the night: giving it human attributes like being able to sleep. He refers to death as "the eternal Footman," another metaphor. He uses an allusion—a reference to another text or person—when he refers to "Prince Hamlet." Another metaphor compares the tops of the waves to "white hair."
Some figures of speech in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" include the following:
Simile: Simile compares two items using like or as. In the opening lines of the poem, the narrator likens the sky to "a patient etherized upon a table."
Repetition: Eliot uses repetition to emphasize the monotony of the endless tea parties Prufrock attends. He repeats these lines several times:
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
He also repeats the word "time" over and over. Prufrock both knows he is frittering his life away doing meaningless things and trying, at the same time, to convince himself he has time left to do something meaningful with his life. The repetition of the word "time" helps reveal his obsession with time.
Metaphor: Metaphor is a comparison that doesn't use like or as. Eliot uses metaphor to liken the London fog to a cat that "rubs its back upon the window-panes." In fact, the entire stanza is an extended metaphor, comparing the fog to a cat in a variety of ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment