The speaker of
T.S. Eliot's poem "" is a disillusioned and discontented middle aged man who is
reckoning with his own anxiety, alienation, and indecision. When Prufrock says, in the poem's
seventh stanza, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons," what he means is
that his life has always been carefully controlled and predictablein other words,
measured.
The image of the coffee spoon is one of middle-class domesticity.
The idea of measuring one's life with such an instrument implies a lack of risk or excitement;
instead of big decisions or milestone events defining the course of his life, all Prufrock has
with which to mark his time on earth is the quotidian coffee spoon. The reader can easily
imagine Prufrock going through the motions of a daily routine of making a cup of morning
coffee.
The line also serves as an indicator of Prufrock's age. That he is
looking back on his life and making this kind of observation makes it clear to the reader that
he is no longer a young man.
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