Trace a few images throughout the poem and explore how they contribute to the poem's meaning and effect.

T.S. Eliot uses striking images to support his meaning in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Some of the more memorable images are recounted below.

"When evening is spread out against the sky / like a patient etherised upon a table." This image of the night sky spreading out, senseless, above the city corresponds to the other people in Prufrock's social circle, the ones who will say, "that is not it at all," not...

T.S. Eliot uses striking images to support his meaning in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Some of the more memorable images are recounted below.

"When evening is spread out against the sky / like a patient etherised upon a table." This image of the night sky spreading out, senseless, above the city corresponds to the other people in Prufrock's social circle, the ones who will say, "that is not it at all," not realizing that they are the ones who are lulled and drugged by a shallow understanding of life.

"The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes" as described in the entire third stanza is way of comparing the settling smog of the city with a cat that curls up and falls asleep. This image gives the poem a sleepy, non-urgent air, which is reflected in line 23: "And indeed there will be time." The poem's mood is one of time dragging by slowly and unproductively until the speaker laments, "I grow old, I grow old" before he has accomplished anything momentous. 

When lines 57 - 58 state, "And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, / When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall," they compare the way people make judgments about the persona with an entomologist mounting an insect for study. This reinforces the persona's feeling of insignificance as well as his self-consciousness in social settings. 

Another powerful image is when the persona says, "I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker." This is a poignant picture of approaching old age and the realization that one's best days are behind him, and that those did not amount to much. Again, this image reinforces Prufrock's low self-esteem and dissatisfaction with aging because he believes he has contributed nothing of great import to the world. 

These powerful images and many others in the poem help to create a mood of pensive introspection and reinforce Prufrock's social anxiety and desire for meaning in life.