Eliot and Dostoevsky's Men

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the main male figures in T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground" and their ineffectiveness in relationships with the people around them, specifically women. The paper looks at how both of these men hide behind their fear in different ways but still manage to both ruin their lives.

From the Paper:

"Eliot and Dostoevsky's Pathetic Little Men In the novella Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky and the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot, we see examples of the myth of the pathetic and ineffective man who is tormented by his life and relationships with women. Both of the main narrative characters of these works of literature are men who are in essence unhappy with themselves and their lives, and whose attempts at normalcy fail miserably. This is most apparent in their relationships with the women that they attempt to have interactions with, but fail because of their overwhelming unpleasantness or ineffectiveness cause by a deep and underlying lack of self worth and fear. Prufrock's narrator is a middle aged man who has realized that he is running out of time to do the things he once thought he would eventually get around to doing (Eliot 4)."

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