Brian Pharai
ECII ENGL 102-21
Professor Baker
5/12/14
Anxiety:
The Death of What It Could Have Been
Anxiety is one of the many dangerous states of inner turmoil that a person can have in their
life. Whether it is social to sexual or any unpleasant hold that causes one to become
anxious, it is a terrible feeling that can take control of one’s life. In society, there are
certain behaviors and expectations of people to fit in and be considered normal to the
majority. Those who have a difficult time adapting to certain behaviors often develop
stress and become anxious people. In T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”,
Prufrock is shown to clearly suffer from anxiety. He is a heartbroken character that is
bound to extreme indecisiveness. This raises his anxiety level about his advancing age
significantly, and develops a need for perfection. He grows throughout the poem into a
character that has almost no hope for any progress. The helplessness to confess his love for
a woman is the tragedy of Prufrok. This inability continues to allow himself to make up
excuses to not confront this woman. It causes great suffering and distress in his life
creating the ruination of what he could have been.
Prufrok is an intelligent man. He is able to analyze certain situations to an extreme, but
allows it to interfere with how he views himself. Eliot writes, “And indeed there will be
time, To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I date?” – Time to turn back and descend the stair,
