wrote this poem during a time in which social customs, especially in Europe, were still a very important issue. There were basically two classes - rich and poor, neither of which Prufrock really fits into. Eliot creates the idea of Prufrock being caught between the two classes in the very beginning of the poem, (if not by J. Alfred Prufrock's unusual pompous/working class sounding name) when he juxtaposes the images of "restless nights in one-night cheap hotels/ And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells"(4-5) and the women who "come and go Talking of Michelangelo."(13-14). These two images represent two completely different ways of life. The first image is of a dingy lifestyle - living among the "half-deserted streets"(4) while the second is the lifestyle that Prufrock longs to be associated with - much like the image of Michelangelo's painting on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel where God and Adam's hands are nearly touching, but not quite. While Prufrock doesn't belong to either of these two classes completely, he does have characteristics of both. He claims to be "Full of high sentence; but a bit obtuse" while "At times, indeed, almost ridiculous-"(117-118). Being the outsider that he is, Prufrock will not be accepted by either class; even though he can clearly make the distinction between the two and recognize their members: "I know the voices dying with a dying fall/ Beneath the music from a farther room."(52-53). This Shakespearean allusion (Twelfth Night (1.1.4) - "If music be the food of love, play on... That strain again! It had a dying fall.") suggests that Prufrock is just out of reach of the group of people that he wishes to be associated with in life and love, but most likely his feelings of insignificance prevent him from associating with anyone at all. He sees himself as a unique "specimen" of nature, in a class all by himself - "And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin/ When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,"(...
