When compared to each other, the two characters Prufrock and Hamlet differ but still share similarities

in some ways. Both of them have so much emotion that dominates their takes on life. Hamlet tends to convert his inner conflicts into physical doings, as he at times manifests his emotions outwardly as madness and rage that lead him to kill his men and to fight his mother. Unlike Hamlet, Prufrock keeps all his inner struggles bottled up that his emotions are mostly inwardly oriented and expressed as self-loathing and apathy for worldly matters. However, they both are avid gadflies that engage in constantly questioning the meanings of actions. Further, the most obvious characteristic they share in common is their self-doubts and mutual tendency to hesitate to make decisions and cause the delay of actions.

Hamlets self-doubts pertain more to his low self-confidence in his own ability to revenge for the murder of his father by his brother. He also questions his inner personality traits by asking Am I a coward? Who calls me a villain? . On the other hand, Prufrocks self-doubts originate from nothing but his low self-confidence in his outer looks. The reason for Hamlets indecisions and procrastinations on taking revenge is due mainly to his self-indulgence in deliberate reasoning, pondering and apprehending even before the occurrence of the events. In another word, Hamlets hesitation is a result of his mental sophistication, whereas Prufrocks hesitation is based on not only the aforementioned self-doubts but also a deep sense of disillusionment.

Prufrock is being indecisive about whether he should go for what he wants as he also keeps convincing himself that there will be time for him to take the ultimate action, which is to act out a role he has longed for long to play but all he needs is just a little more time to prepare for readiness. There will be time, there will be time/ to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet. His conflict, hence the procrastination, comes from this collision of reality and the romantic scenarios that he wishes to enact for his life.

The line that says: And for a hundred visions and revision well epitomizes the aforementioned conflict. Hundreds of visions seen through his minds eye interlace with hundreds of revisions of cold realities that reveal their faces to him. Hundreds of times of heightened anticipation turning into disappointment wither the young man. The world of eternal youth he imagines hes in does not match the world that he starts to learn he indeed inhabits, where people grow old and bald. He is not Peter Pan after all.

To sum it up, I think the two protagonists are both depicted by the authors as bearing a fundamental flaw psychologically that inevitably cause them to suffer intensely throughout their lifetime. Such tragic traits as Hamlets paranoia and Prufrocks narcissism, if allowed to develop to the extreme, can truly be detrimental enough to sabotage the prospect of a young man.