In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," how does the tone relate to the presentation of the subject?

Certainly this modernist classic opens itself up to a
multiplicity of different interpretations. However, one of the meanings that stands out
to me is the approach of Alfred Prufrock to time, and the way that time is viewed with
fear, trepidation and how this relates to indecision. Centrally, this poem concerns the
speaker's fear of committing to a woman and how this will in turn ensnare him in the
monotony of social conventions that make up life. Time is shown to be something that is
elusive for him and resulting in his premature aging. Note how time is viewed in the
third stanza:

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There will be time, there will be
time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you
meet;

There will be time to murder and
create,

A time for all the works and days of
hands

That life and drop a question on your
plate;

Time for you and time for
me,

And time yet for a hundred
indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and
revisions,

Before the taking of toast and
tea.

Note the emphasis on how
the speaker is trying to convince himself that "there will be time," shown by the
repetition of this phrase. He is trying to convince himself that he doesn't have to
commit yet, however at the same time he recognises that time is not infinite, and if he
does not commit and make a decision against the "hundred indecisions" that are still
open to him, he risks remaining lonely and old
forever.

This perhaps explains the somewhat whistful and
bleak tone regarding time, and life and how it slips away from us. The indecision of J.
Alfred Prufrock is shown to be reflected in the tone of bleak disillusionment with life
and society which the speaker seems to be both drawn to out of fear but also to
despise.