Despite the different eras in which they were written, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot focuses on one theme of love and rejection similar to that in Robert Browning's The Last Ride Together. In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, it is unclear whether Prufrock is truly in love with the person he is speaking to in the poem, and this reflects the sensibility that comes from modernist poetry. Prufrock is afraid of rejection and is undecided whether or not to confess his love. In The Last Ride Together, it is clear that the speaker is eternally in love with the person he is addressing, which effectively rejects the typical beliefs of the Victorian era, as the Victorians believed in chaste marriage before true love. Browning's character, however, is not afraid of rejection, but still gets rejected. Although both of these poems deal with a different kind of love, be it the uncertain one or the eternal one, both speakers address the concept of rejection. This further indicates a relationship between the two poems, because although they have contradictory ideas about life and love, they both end up in the same place, suggesting that neither character has power over their own destiny when it comes to love. Although The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Last Ride Together differ in that they deal with contrasting ideas about time, they both project similar ideas of love and rejection. By comparing the two poems, readers can see that no matter what they desire, they have no power over their love life. In the Victorian era, it would be typical for a woman to marry for money or for reasons other than love. Unconditional love among the Victorians was rare and uncoveted. Browning's character goes...... middle of paper ...... and T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock both focus on the theme of love and rejection. The protagonists of both works end up alone despite their efforts and desire to be with the people they love. Browning's protagonist desperately tries to stay with his love - almost as if he's holding on to something so he can stay in the present and never move on, and Prufrock never takes the leap he needs to tell his love how he really feels about it. his. Although both characters use very different approaches to deal with their feelings, they both end up alone because love is uncontrollable and not in the power of any human being. When these two poems are treated as complementary works, readers realize that the purpose of the rejection at the end of these poems is to demonstrate that love is not attainable through desire and no one has the power to force love..