The Sunset Limited- White and Prufrock as the Lamentable Modern Men

Is it Perfume From a Dress That Makes Me So Digress?

Professor White and J. Alfred Prufrock Lament Modernity's Failings

T.S. Eliot

Cormac McCarthy

T. S. Eliot and Cormac McCarthy examine the tortured psyche of the modern man through poetic and dramatic lenses. The characters have fine differences in detail and experience, but overall White and Prufrock are archetypes of the Lamentable Modern Man. Both men are overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted. Together, McCarthy’s nihilistic professor and Eliot’s balding pessimist represent a trope of literary art.

Both White and Prufrock are introduced during a decisive point in their lives when they must “force (their) moment into its crisis” .For Prufrock this means taking a leap of faith and accepting his reality (Kierkegaard, Class Notes). And reality for Eliot’s Lamentable Modern Mancenters around a dull and mediocre life filled with feelings of inadequacy and fears of making decisions. Unable to seize opportunity or take risks (especially with women), Prufrock lives in a world where yesterday was the same as today and today will be the same as tomorrow. The hell of repetition. Prufrock has seen it all, yet has nothing. Throughout the play he rambles: “And I have known them all…” And he has. But what does he have to show for it but loneliness and gloom?

McCarthy’sLamentable Modern Man is wrought with similar feelings of alienation and nihilism. White is a humanities professor so overwhelmed with irremediable depression that his leap of faith intersects with the Sunset Limited. Overeducated, White has come to believe that the experience of happiness is “contrary to the human condition” and that the pursuit of happiness is therefore futile. Like Prufrock, White has seen it all. Now he must ask himself, “would it have been worth white?” White experiences a moment of crisis just as Prufrock does. However, instead of ending on a daydream about sea-girls, White condemns himself to death. McCarthy’s Lamentable Modern Man could not accept reality. Both Prufrock and the Professor epitomize the negative side-effects of modernity; disillusionment, loneliness, and nihilism.

Excerpt from T.S. Eliot's The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!	75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?	80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,	85
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,	90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—	95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,	100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:	105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . . . . .	110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,	115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …	120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.	125

Link to Entire Prufrock Poem