1.In T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the central character's consciousness infuses the poem and communicates with the reader. The poem can be seen as being engendered by a combination of instinctual responses to the issues representing a certain stage in the life cycle, the stage reached by Prufrock. Prufrock's musings can be identified with the struggle Freud details between the life instincts and death instincts. Prufrock is a man who has reached middle age and who is now embarking on the journey into the last portion of his life. His musings are part memory and part fear--memory of his youth and fear of his impending old age--and both take place in a surreal setting of literary teas, walks through the London fog, and walks along the beach.
At this stage in his life, midway between birth and death, Prufrock is beginning to shift from awareness of the life instinct to awareness of the death instinct. He sees himself now like a crab scuttling across the floor of the ocean. This is a time identified with dusk, with the period between day and night, life and death. It is a time of yellow fog, making it more difficult for Prufrock to see the future or discern the meaning of the past. Again and again he repeats that "there will be time," when in fact it would seem that he believes there may not be time because he can now see through to the end. He has used up all the time he has and sees a shorter and shorter future for himself.
The shift in instincts is related to a shift in sexual potency and attractiveness, and this is clear as Prufrock walks along the beach and hears the mermaids singing--they are not singing to him. Prufrock has become more timid at this stage, more uncertain even than he was before. He wonders again and again if he "dares," and most notably if he dares to life: "Do I dare to eat a peach?" The peach is an organic substance indicating that the speaker is asking if he should p...