restless mermaid
“Restless Mermaid” What will the fear of mediocrity lead us into? Can we dare swim with the mermaids, accepting that they may have a song for us? I think Eliot is asking us these questions in the way he describes drifting through life in the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Pondering what he should do to express himself, he asks “Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?” This moment is felt so often in life, the wanting to break out of a situation and come to a “crisis” and/or a definite feeling. In a kind of answer to his question, he says at the end of the same stanza, “…And in short, I was afraid.” We are all afraid in some way; some people say that anger is just hiding our fear, while others would see anger as full exposure.