Empoword

Additional Readings 438 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.” (90-98) By invoking the character of Lazarus, 1 Prufrock hopes to procure an archetype which fits him better than that of John the Baptist. However, Prufrock realizes that this mold is not adequate either; he questions whether he could interact with someone even with the support of enlightening, didactic knowledge of the afterlife. In so doing, he effectively ‘tries on’ an identity, only to abandon it upon fear of being misunderstood. Ultimately, Prufrock comments on the ignobility of his very equivocation: “No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be” (111). Prufrock is intensely aware of his reluctance to commit, to make a decision, reminiscent of the tragic Dane—but he actively degrades himself by rejecting the comparison. He suggests that, if anything, he is only fit to be a supporting character, and even then, only an obsequious and foolish one. [I 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 time, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. (112-9) After the adoption and abandonment of three ambitious archetypes (John the Baptist, Lazarus, and Hamlet), Prufrock’s “almost” in lines 118 and 119 tells us that he 1 There is some ambiguity regarding to which Lazarus—Lazarus of Bethany or Lazarus of “Dives and Lazarus”—Eliot alludes. Although Eliot does not specify in the text of the poem, I imagine that line 95 implies that it is the latter, and it is under this assumption that I continue analysis.