Advice to J. Alfred Prufrock…

July 24, 2009
This was written while I was taking English Composition II. We had read T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and the discussion centered mostly on the sexuality of the poem. I was intrigued by the second half of line 121:
"Do I dare to eat a peach?"

from God:
     Taste and see
     that the fruit is good.
     Just don't eat the fruit
     from that tree.

from the serpent:
     Has God said
     thou shalt not
     eat a peach?

from a Puritan:
     Thou shalt not eat of the peachtree,
     nor the fruit thereof;
     lest thou become as one
     of the fruiteaters
     who bare not fruit.

from a nutritionist:
     0g fat
     cholesterol, 0mg
     0mg sodium
     dietary fiber, 3g
     go ahead

from Hamlet:
     To eat or not to eat: that is the question:
     Whether 'tis favorable for the tongue to satisfy
     With the savory juices of this sweetest of fruit,
     Or to ingest the fibrous flesh and
     To suffer in the end? To eat: to squat;
     More and more; and by squat to say no end.

from Freud:
     You are titillated and fixated
     upon your mother's breasts.

from a poetry critic:
     To Prufrock,
     the peach
     is merely a metaphor
     symbolizing a sweet life
     that is unattainable,
     since you rouse to reality when
     “human voices wake us” (line 131).
     Therefore,
     whether you dare
     or no, you will not.