"The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" has some incredible and magical imagery, yet the individual images are not the guiding force or theme of the poem. The theme of the poem is Prufrock, split between two worlds, between a world of beauty and art, and one clear, cold, and calculated, "measured out… with coffeespoons," and his indecision to reveal this split to another person. He begins by describing an evening, "like a patient etherized upon a table." This is his way of pointing out the beauty in the sky, with its millions of stars and special things, it really is quite tremendous but it's something we're used to, hence we've learnt to take it for granted. We're "etherized" to its beauty