Question

Read the following excerpts in which Granny Weatherall, from Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," and J. Alfred Prufrock, from T. S Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, assess their pasts:
God give a sign! For a second time there was no sign. Again no bridegroom and the priest in the house. She could not remember any other sorrow because this grief wiped them all away. Oh, no, there's nothing more cruel than this I'll never forgive it. She stretched herself with a deep breath and blew out the light.
-The Jlting of Granny Weatherall"' by Katherine Anne Porter

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?. I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot.

Which best states the theme that is developed in both excerpts?

A. Some grief must be endured.

B. Live life to the fullest.

C. Forgive and be happy.

D. Peace is in the present tense.

Answer 1

Answer:

A. Some grief must be endured.  

Explanation:

J. Alfred Prufrock guides a companion through the smoggy, startling lanes of present day London as he considers his "staggering inquiry" and stresses that he is coming up short on time "for a hundred indecisions."  

Prufrock visits a gathering of modern ladies who "come and go / Talking of Michelangelo," yet he feels hesitant about his thin, thinning up top appearance. Exhausted at the possibility of taking part in social action, he wishes to pull back.  

Prufrock winds up somewhere out in dreamland, pondering whether he should "force the moment to its crisis” or “squeeze the universe into a ball / To roll it toward some overwhelming question." However, he feels unfit to express the idea of either his emergency or his inquiry.  

He thinks about himself as a side character in Shakespeare's Hamlet, an "attendant lord” or “Fool” who plays an insignificant part in life’s drama. As the poem ends, Prufrock imagines himself strolling down the beach, listening to “mermaids singing, each to each” but not to him. He dreams of lingering “in the chambers of the sea” until “human voices wake us and we drown.."

Answer 2

Answer:

A

Explanation: Some grief Must be endured (apex)