Question

let us go then, you and i, when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table; let us go, though certain half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels and sawdust restauarants with oyster-shells: streets that follow like a tedious argument id insidious intent. what is one purpose of the symbolism used in this passage

Answer 1

Example: " the muttering retreats of restless nights" There is personification used in this passage. The symbolism is used to crate imagery to the reader appealing to the 5 senses. (touch,hear,see,smell, and taste) In this case, it's sight and it helps the audience picture the moment.

Answer 2

The answer to the question: What is one purpose of the symbolism used in this passage, would be, that the speaker wants the reader to accompany him in this process of self-examination and self-reflection and establishes a connection with the reader on the themes of loneliness and communion.

Step-by-step explanation:

This excerpt is the initial part of the much longer poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", written by poet T.S. Elliot. The poem is a melancholic piece of work that takes the reader through the process of self-acknowledgment and self-examination that the speaker goes through, as he tries to find answers as to the meaning of his existence and of life itself. In that first portion of the poem, what the speaker does is establish a communion with the reader by inviting him to follow, to be a part of this process, and he also establishes an ethereal sense, almost an otherworldly experience, when he speaks about the etherized patient. This process of self-examination will start with both reader and speaker, in the night, through a haze of dreams, at a moment when things seem to be even lonelier than ever, and the meaning of life seems to be getting really far away.