The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

     Poor J. Alfred Prufrock.  This man seems to have a pretty crappy life.  He's super insecure, suffering from unrequited love, has social paralysis, and greatly lacks confidence.  At the beginning of the poem, he is already aware that what he is about to say is basically meaningless; the girl he wishes to share his feelings with will never know them or share them with him.  In lines 8 and 9, "Streets that follow like a tedious argument / of insidious intent" suggest that he is already tired of what he is about to say.  He himself doesn't even want to hear it, which leaves us, the readers, wondering why he's even saying it.
     You know how when someone has a bad breakup and can't quite get closure, so they write a letter to their ex-partner, but then never actually give it to them but end up burning it?  I think that's pretty much what J. Alfred Prufrock is doing in this poem.  He constantly questions himself, "Do I dare / Disturb the universe?"  He wonders if sharing his feelings is worth his time.  As he begins to pity himself more, "No!  I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; / Am an attendant lord, one that will do / To swell a progress," (lines 111-113) we come to understand that he sees himself not as the main character--the one who the story is about, the one that everyone is looking at--but just an "attendant lord," someone seemingly unimportant in the background.
     At the very end, Prufrock is awakened from his trance.  If even for a second he thought he might give this letter to the woman he loves, or share his feelings with her in person, he now knows that was completely ridiculous.  The last stanza, "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown," relates to the idea of Greek mythology and sirens, where sailors get drowned by sirens who lure them in with beautiful singing.  Prufrock relates himself to a man that has been lured in by the song.  The song being the idea that this woman he loves would ever know his feelings and reciprocate them.  But in the end, he is awakened from this seemingly ridiculous thought, and drowns in the reality that he will never be with her.