Compare and Contrast Essay: Araby vs. The Love Song J.Alfred Prufrock

In the short story “Araby” by Joyce James and the poem “The Love Song J.Alfred Prufrock” by T.S Elliot, two male characters interested in women show if there is a difference in relationships as we are younger or older. While both characters are very different in age, they can still experience their version of love, whether a crush or a romantic relationship. In the story “Araby '' the main character is a little boy who has a crush on his friend’s sisters. While he admires her from afar, he is always too shy to talk to her. While in “The Love Song, J.Alfred Prufrock, the main character, is an older man who is going on through his life when he wants to ask an essential question about possibly having a relationship with a woman, but he gets nervous. These two characters have a broad gap between them, and in each of their stories, we can analyze to see if relationships will last when we are young as they are supposed to when we are older or if love is supposed to be more accessible when we are older. 

“Araby” is about a younger boy who lives across the street from one of his friends with whom he hangs out a lot. He notices this boy’s older sister and begins to admire her from a distance. He would wake up every morning and wait by the window to see when she left the house, and then he would follow her to school. Although when he would walk right behind her on the way to school, he would not say anything to her, and when she would walk the other way to go to her school, he would purposely cross her to see him walking. The young boy seems to have a crush on his friend’s sister. According to Huang, a crush is “ people who experience a romantic crush is romantically attracted to a specific person who is unaware of the crush.”(Huang, page)  The definition describes the young boy's situation as the older girl seems to be unaware that the young boy likes her. One day they finally have a conversation, and she tells him that she can’t go to “Araby,” which seems to be some type of market. Since she cannot go to this market, she tells him that he should go to this market for her. He is, of course, so happy by this conversation and makes it evident that he would want to do anything for her to impress her. He tells her that he will buy her a present at this market. The young boy’s intense crush shows that he is committed to impressing the girl. Sternberg describes commitment as “ a decision that one loves the other person and wants to maintain that love over time.”(Sternberg, page) This young boy has been committed to this girl, and she does not acknowledge that he exists most days. He continues to pursue her in his mind and hopes for a chance one day. He becomes obsessed with the thought of going to this market for her that he cannot focus on any of his school work. Although he is forced to rely on his uncle to take him to “Araby,” he is very nervous that his uncle will forget. He finally waits for this day when he is supposed to go to the market with his uncle, but early in the day, it already starts when he sees that he has gotten home late from work. He realizes that his uncle can no longer take him to the market. He sees the train is still running, so he decides to head out on his own. He takes a little bit of money with him and hopes to find her still a present to bring back. Although when he does finally arrive at the “Araby,” everything is almost closed, and no one will help pick something out. So he takes too long, and eventually, the lights go out in the market, and he is left with nothing. He does not find a present for her, so he is upset and ashamed. He believed this was his chance to impress her, but it has now been ruined. 

The young boy’s situation can be labeled a crush because his story shows a great example of a crush’s definition. The story could show how since he is just a young boy, it is labeled as a crush rather than love because these feelings of the unknown with this girl may come and go. The boy is crushing on the thought of the girl and what is also based on her appearance, as he has not talked to the girl enough to have a genuine love connection. According to psychologist  Robert Sternberg, “love can be considered to have three main components: passion, intimacy, and commitment.”(Sternberg, page) The boy shows that he is not fully experiencing these main components and may be too young to understand the concept of love fully. Since the boy is so young, it is more evident that this boy is experiencing a crush and not love yet. 

In the story “The Long Song of J. Alfred Prufrock '' an older man decides to take the reader along to show what his life is like in London. He foreshadows that he may have a big question that he wants to ask but cannot bring himself to do it because he is too nervous. Prufrock seems to be a brilliant man who is very observant of his surroundings and avoids doing what he truly wants to do. He wants to ask this woman to be in a relationship with him, but he cannot bring himself to do it. Prufrock shows that he is living a somewhat dull life and that the little things do not matter to him. He has a lot of time to ask this woman if she wants to be in a relationship, but he still does not because he is overthinking. He is more worried about what other people will say about him and believes that he is almost not good enough. 

The way Prufrock describes his life and how the reader can determine his thoughts about himself, one can think that he may be suffering from depression or anxiety. Depression can be described as a mood disorder that involves a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. The poem seems to describe Prufock has depicted himself in the poem. From the text, “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.”(book, 525). Prufrock describes how he knows how people look at him, and he feels as if people are always staring at him and judging him. He compares people staring at him to a bug pinned against a wall wriggling around. He seems to have anxiety about what people think about him and believes their eyes are crushing him.  According to Rebecca White, “people with mental health difficulties experience higher rates of relationship breakdown than the general population.”(White, page) This quote could explain why Prufrock is so avoidant of asking the women because of how worried he is about what others would think about him or that he already knows too much about life. 

Prufrock’s lack of self-confidence and self-consciousness could come from what has happened during his childhood. Prufrock may have never experienced a relationship or a crush when he was younger. From the poem, “And would it have been worthwhile, to have bitten off the matter with a smile.”( book, 626) Here he questions himself on if it would have been worth it to force a smile and bring up what he was genuinely thinking. Prufrock is self-conscious and has self-doubt in asking the question that he has been waiting to ask. During his childhood, he may never have had the confidence in himself to succeed or had anyone who was there for him in a loving way, which has now rolled into his adulthood. Data was collected during a study on romantic relationships, “data collected across four waves, covering romantic relationships from ages 17 to 29. The results showed that the high withdrawal predicted a higher likelihood of romantic non-involvement by adulthood.” (White, page) The data could mean that if Prufrock has not had a romantic relationship in his life yet, studies show that the older you get, the more reluctant and carefree you are to get into a romantic relationship. It seems that Prufrock could not have been involved in a romantic relationship when he was young, and now since he is older does not feel a strong desire to start a relationship.