The Struggle To Lead An Authentic Life

In the poem of Alfred Prufrock there are a number of things that he lets stand in his way of leading an authentic life. He notices how his life is nothing more than this mechanical and robotic cycle living among people who are stuck in the same loop of dull and predictable living. There are two things that he lets stand in the way of changing his life with the first being the fear of how people with judge him and the fear of messing up his tidy well kept life. Prufrock stated, "[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]/ Do I dare? / Disturb the universe?" (44-46). This suggests that Prufrock is afraid of how others will view him and also his unwillingness to, as he calls it, "disturb the universe" by knocking his life out of whack while trying to become more authentic. The second thing he lets stand in the way is his own lack of determination and will to change his life. He has played up on time as being his foe because he talks about growing old and I think that also lead to him not being as ambitious about turning his life around as much as a younger person would. I think that what Prufrock wants out of life is to be able to live out his deepest dreams and desires without having to answer to anyone or anything such as work, friends, or family but he lets time hinder this. Prufrock stated, "And I have known the eyes already, known them all- / The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, / And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, / When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall" (55-58). Not only is he tired of the way his life has been going, but feels trapped also.

In Ginsberg's "Howl", he is suggesting that the culture and ways of American life has driven people mad. In his last poem that we read he talked about non conformity and how one should dare to stand out from the confines that society and government has placed them in. In this poem I feel as though he is relating back to that same idea, and the people who are mad in this poem are probably people who chose not to conform. When these people deviate from the norm of society they are treated as outcasts in a sense which makes them angry and even more crazy in my opinion. This is best illustrated when Ginsberg stated, " who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull, / who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, / burning their money in wastebaskets / and listening to the Terror through the wall" (12-15). I also think that in the poem Ginsberg is making a point that not only has the choice to not conform to society taken a toll on these people, but also has drugs, sex, and alcohol aided in destroying their minds and it is shown when he says, "dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, / angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry / dynamo in the machinery of night" (3-5). Ginsberg is expressing throughout part one how non-conformity influenced mental breakdowns of the ones around him.

I think that the two authors for today were very pessimistic in the sense that they only showed the bad side of life as they saw it. I didn't see how any of the poems resolved the gloomy nature of their context by offering a glimpse of hope or encouragement to the issues talked about. I connected Ginsberg poem with a documentary I watched about Walter Freeman who was a famous lobotomist of the 40s and 50s. He dealt a lot with people in mental institutes who were aid to be mentally ill but maybe some of them were afflicted by what Ginsberg spoke of in his poem.

Do you think that it is possible to lead an authentic life while still conforming to society? Could there be a balance between the two of them?