The state of alienation, defined by T. Eliot, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman as separation, isolation, and disillusionment, characterizes industrial civilization today because people are unable to find community or meaning without alienation. In T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,"" a man struggles in the dating world which he classifies as his own "personal hell." As he goes through the poem he isolates himself from women as he makes them seem like dreadful creatures to be treated differently around. The story "The Yellow Wallpaper,"" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, criticizes modern society by telling the story from the point of view of a lady who has been basically locked away in her house. She is locked in this house and forced to stay inside by her husband who treats her this way because she is slowly going insane. These works of literature both can describe alienation in modern society today.
Eliot describes alienation, in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,"" as the life of a single man in the dating world by comparing it to going through hell. In the beginning of the poem he repeats this phrase a couple times, "In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo. Michelangelo, in this case, is a metaphor for being the perfect man, which the author does not consider himself, isolating him even further from women because he downgrades himself. Eliot then says, "I do not think that they will sing to me." He states this as he is talking about the mermaids and furthers to neglect himself. Elliot accurately describes the modern dating society for insecure men today, as they isolate themselves as lesser beings in today's modern society.
Gilman also criticizes modern alienation in society through "The Yellow Wallpaper,"" by showing how people alienate others when they see something wrong with them. In this the author opens up by talking about her husband when she says, "John is practical in the extreme.
