When analysing literary texts, the psychoanalytic theory could be utilized to decipher or interpret the concealed meaning within a text, or to better understand the author's intentions. Through the analysis of motives, Freud's theory can be used to help clarify the meaning of the writing as well as the actions of the characters within the text.
The title of the poem is not people see as it is- it is not a typical love poem nor is it a love letter that has been written to a lover. Instead here J. Alfred Prufrock is T.S. Eliot pen-name which he use for himself to write a poem that describes his subconscious and suppressed mind. The poem actually describes the insecurity part of Prufrock which are in a state of emotional, overanxious, over-educated young man that are tortured in his own mind. Prufrock thinks he is getting old and he is aging fastidiously that makes him think that the world as well as his life is getting boring. In this poem, Prufrock lacks direction and purpose in life.
As we go through the poem, we will start to question what subject matter is actually playing in his mind? Is it problems regarding his romantic love life, or is it the matters regarding his social life that surrounds him? Prufrock uses a lot of monologue in this poem as to show how he is in a state of isolation in his feeling and mind. In the third stanza of the poem, loneliness, isolation and quietness are being shown to the readers. As Prufrock walks alone during his lonely night journey looking for accompaniment, he describes that people are wearing masks to chase after the superficial world, trying to climb up the social ladder and trying to be looked up upon to. "I grow old...I grow old" in one of the line in the poem again shows Prufrock insecurity that hides deep inside him. He has no confidence even to woo a woman as he is afraid of what women will think of him. A modern educated man’s experiences of weariness, regret, embarrassment, longing, emasculation, sexual frustration, sense of decay, and awareness of mortality are portrayed in his character. At the end of the poem, time became stagnant for him and it is as if it was just his imagination and dream.
The meaning behind his own poem portrays his own suppressed feelings and literary critics sees this as his own reflection of himself. Somehow, Prufrock in this poem actually do represent T.S. Eliot.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T. S. Eliot, 1888 to 1965
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep… tired… or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old… I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Moreover,
we can say that Rokeya has successfully create a story that has interesting plot
where it focuses on the hidden meaning that need to be realized by the reader. Instead
of having a leisure reading, readers can also get to know the reality of how
women are being treated in the Indian society. They only think that education
is meant for men and not for women as they will end up live in the house and do
all the house chores. Based on this argument, there is a Quranic verse that
says “O our Lord! You encompass everything in (Your) mercy and knowledge, so
forgive those who repent (of disbelief) and follow Your path, and save them
from the torment of Hell.” (25:70) and “O our Lord! Grant us in our wives and
offspring the coolness of eyes and make us a leader of those who guard
themselves against evil.” (25:74) Based on these two Quranic verses, we can say
that Allah swt never limits the education to only one gender but it is clearly
mentioned that Allah swt wants all the human being to seek for knowledge. It is
important to be an educated woman because it will helps woman to educate her
children in the future. To add, it is also important for children to adapt
moral education since childhood and the best person to teach moral education is
the mother. This is what Rokeya wants to raise in her story, Sultana’s Dream.
She wants to make the society realize that education is very important for
women as they will help their children since the early phase. If women cannot
get a proper education, how can they be a good mother and teacher to her
children later? 
