Profrock
...at is said to him. Roughly translated, the epigraph means that if the speaker knew his words had a chance of leaving Hell, then he would not have told his story. Like Dante’s character, Prufrock is in a self-pitying “Hell” of his own insecure feelings. Prufrock feels unworthy of the love he so desperately wants. He pours out all of his self-doubting reflections in this poem because he assumes the reader will never be able to repeat them, yet he wants the comfort of having told someone. He needs to confess his fears and doubts to someone who he believes will never tell. He may also feel that we, the readers, are also trapped in the same Hell as he is and can therefore sympathize with his lack of self-confidence. Prufrock’s helpless and inferior view of his inability to change his situation conveys the torture he feels through his inaction. He may well feel that his powerlessness to act can...