A Competitive Analysis of The Love Song of J. Alfred...

Many authors wrote about the spiritual emptiness of society after the First World War, when many people were very disillusioned and trying to find meaning in their lives. Two authors that were writing during this time were T.S. Eliot who wrote his very well-known poem, â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† (1915), and F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote his famous novel, The Great Gatsby (1925). Both Eliot and Fitzgerald criticized the spiritual emptiness in their society by revealing their characters inability to communicate, to love, and to see the truth about their own lives. Eliot and Fitzgeralds characters are unable to communicate because of their spiritual emptiness. In T.S. Eliots â€Å"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock† this lack of communication mainly seen through the peoples insecurities. Talking about the parties, J. Alfred Prufrock states: In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. †¦ I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. (35-53) The people of this society are unable to communicate with one another because they are carrying meaningless conversation that is kept to impress rather than express. The fact that they are â€Å"Talking of Michelangelo† shows their desperate desire to impress (36). Along with that, the women that â€Å"come and go† have no purpose of being at these parties, emphasizing the spiritually emptiness within the society; this society is very blinded by false social expectations