The image of the fog is significant because the protagonist is comparing himself to the fog in that he skirts along the outside of what is happening. If he is like fog, moving slowly and quietly, he does not have to become involved but can still see what is going on. When he writes that there will be time to "prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" (27), he is simply avoiding the issue by putting off the inevitable. The protagonist convinces himself that there will be time to do all that he wants to do, such as "murder and create" (28), and "drop a question on your plate" (30). Allan Burns suggests that the images are important to the reader in that they "underscore Prufrock's low self-esteem: he identifies with the lonely working class men" (Burns 47) and the image of his dead being chopped off...
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