ENL 010C Blog Post 1

            In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” writer T.S. Eliot illustrates the mindset of an anxious young person’s mind, as the titular narrator makes his social anxiety known to the audience. The story begins with Prufrock, hopeful and eager to socialize at a party, but when he arrives, he is too preoccupied with what others will think of him to do as much as say hello to anyone. As he stands on the sidelines, awaiting the right moment to introduce himself, Prufrock's worries take hold of him, and he finds himself trapped in a self-made state of limbo, effectively removing himself from the scene. Interestingly enough, a more recent story follows a similar chain of events that depict teenage anxiety: “Watamote”, an animated series following an introverted high school student named Tomoko who repeatedly tries to socialize with others and fails due to an incessant fear of rejection and her own preconceived ideas. The series provides an interesting and arguably tragic perspective on living with social anxiety, despite the fact that it is coupled with comedy which can be crass and more discomforting than humorous. When closely examining the two, one can find that both Prufrock and Tomoko share the same self-destructive personalities and follow similar courses of events.

            Initially, both Prufrock and Tomoko are fueled by an eagerness to join their peers in order to live their visions of a happy social life. Despite their expectations, they instead isolate themselves from everyone else because of an overwhelming nervousness, with Prufrock’s stemming from a mental need to make himself presentable to others and Tomoko’s resulting from a misunderstanding of how social interactions regularly occur. For evidence of this, the first stanza of Eliot’s poem features lines such as “do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit” (Eliot, lines 11-12) to imply that Prufrock is excited, but his enthusiasm slowly dissipates when he begins speaking lines such as “there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet” (Eliot, lines 26-27), signifying his decline into a state of mind in which he is too comfortable to converse with others. In this way, Prufrock fails to enjoy the party because he refuses to be the initiator.

            Tomoko mirrors Prufrock as early as her introduction, confident that her first year of high school will be an improvement over her past of isolation. However, she quickly finds that people will not speak to her directly, and even when they do, she is hardly capable of mustering a response, speaking in stammers and whispers. The series has multiple examples of her difficulty with speech: a scene from the first episode shows Tomoko unable to reply to a teacher who amicably says goodbye to her, and another scene where she orders food from a restaurant shows that she has trouble making eye contact with people. Coupled with her lackluster communication skills is the fact that she is a large consumer of media such as video games and films, many of which portray unrealistic interactions. Due to her antisocial nature, she uses these as her only prompts for how to act in the company of others, and it is because of this that her efforts always fail. Tomoko's state of being is similar to Prufrock in that she is afraid of rejection, and this is taken a step further since her problems are rooted in her inability to socialize.

            Another detail which prevents the protagonists from changing their ways is a denial of their own self-worth. Prufrock and Tomoko consistently belittle themselves because they fail to be the versions of themselves they want to be, and both grimly come to accept that they can never have perfect lives as they envisioned. Prufrock is arguably the more defeatist of the two due to his assumptions of how other people view him and how he views himself after attending the party. His opinion of himself at the party is that he does not belong there, as he imagines the other attendees quietly gossiping about “how his hair is growing thin” (Eliot, line 41) and “how his arms and legs are thin” (Eliot, line 44). Most likely, these are Prufrock's fears playing tricks on him, but that does not make them any less believable to him. Prufrock asks himself “Do I dare disturb the universe?” (Eliot, lines 45-46) as though he is committing a sin by joining a conversation, and he relegates himself to the role of “an easy tool” (Eliot, line 114) to be used and forgotten instead of a person worthy of conversing with his fellows. Though Prufrock’s desire remains, he abstains from acting upon it because he views himself as undeserving on account of other people not acknowledging him.          

            Just as Prufrock’s insecurities crush his self esteem, the same can be said for Tomoko, whose perception of herself is lowered by her longing for others’ approval and reinforced by her own mistakes. After her lonely first term of high school, Tomoko convinces herself that every other student hates and ridicules her despite the fact that many of the people she encounters hardly have a chance to introduce themselves. One scene exemplifies the extent of her anger: as Tomoko prepares to leave school on a rainy day, she is unable find her umbrella, and she immediately concludes that someone had stolen it purely to scorn her. After cursing whoever she thought was the thief, she soon realizes that she had looked in the wrong place, finds her umbrella and proceeds to walk home in a calmer but no less gloomy state of mind. Often when Tomoko’s life goes awry, her first instinct is to blame someone as the culprit because she believes that the world is always working against her. She is essentially her own worst enemy due to how she reacts to conflict, and the series eventually reaches a point where she questions why her life is like this. She recalls reading in a book that sadness and hardship are the “spices of an enjoyable life,” but she questions the truth in this by stating that all she gets from life is spice. She considers the possibility that she was always the way she is, which can be considered her acknowledging that she has a problem, but does not change the fact that she cannot find a resolution to her situation.

            Despite their similarities, the ends of these protagonists' stories are where they differ, at least in terms of what is implied. Prufrock’s ending takes a more fantastical turn, where he describes himself as a frail man sitting on a beach among beautiful mermaids, but his presence remains the same as it was before: just a ghost in the midst of a world that won't notice him. He shies away from the mermaids under the impression that they would dislike him, stating explicitly that he does not think “they [would] sing to [him]” (Eliot, line 125), and in the midst of all the activity, he lets himself be drowned out of existence. His fear to step into the unknown ultimately becomes the death of his adventurous youth. On the other hand, while Tomoko’s ending is more understated, it bears some positivity in its implications of her future. In the last few seconds, a narrator repeats a line he said at the beginning of the series in which he states, “This is about an unpopular girl and her story which doesn’t really matter.” While this line is used in mean-spirited light at the beginning, it takes a turn when Tomoko herself adds before everything is over, “Seriously, it doesn’t matter.” The reuse of the line in this context implies change, specifically that Tomoko does not give her fears the amount of attention she had in previous years.  

            The contrast between the two protagonists lies in the choices that they make in their endings. Prufrock’s journey ends with his fear overtaking his life and leaving him a prisoner of his phobias even as he grows to be an old man. Tomoko’s, while not triumphant, leaves off at a point where she has chosen to overcome her anxieties. Together, these stories demonstrate that while it is dangerously easy to be swallowed up by one's own insecurities, it is possible to face those insecurities and live a more fulfilling life.