Imaginative journeys are unique in their ability to challenge the perceptions of readers through the presentation of unconventional people and the landscapes. They have the power to transport the reader to a new time and place, enabling the composer to step beyond contextual paradigms to explore the human condition. While most imaginative journeys incorporate the process of speculation like in Julio Cortazar’s 1967 short story ‘The Night Face Up’, I believe T.S Eliot’s poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prudock’ demonstrates otherwise. Both texts manipulate the notion of time, however they present the philosophical exploration of existentialism in different manners.

To present important discoveries to the reader about their own worlds, one must first show the lives and circumstances for which others experience. T.S Eliot’s witty poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prudock’ features the complication of existentialism through self-deprecating comments about physical attributes of a broken man playing an insignificant cameo in the lives of others. In the disparaging quotes “And indeed there will be time / To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’ / Time to turn back and descend the stair, / with a bald spot in the middle of my hair” “(They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’)” “(They will say: ‘but how his arms and legs are thin!’) / Do I dare / Disturb the universe? / In a minute there is time / For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.” This speculation Prufrock undergoes provides an anxiety provoking mood which does not bode for a particularly happy ending to his journey, showing the reader to revaluate their own life decisions and to not waste time focusing on worst-case scenarios, but to embrace life as it happens.

The uncertainty of the human condition is characterized by procrastination, doubt, anxiety and dread. All these human states are exemplified throughout the text by the use of repetition to alleviate the pressure of nervous and unsettling situations. Prufrock mentions the leading of the reader to an “overwhelming question” which he is not ready to reveal, and to not even encourage speculation about, an example of procrastination and uncertainty. The reassuring quote “Let us go” is repeated three times throughout the first stanza: “Oh, do not ask, ‘what is it?’ / Let us go and make our visit.” The “overwhelming question” makes the reader feel unclear about what is in store for them as the journey continues and yet the poet repeatedly insists on the reader’s company, but does not invite speculation from the reader.