T.S Eliot in Prufrock. What does he mean by saying "do i dare to eat a peach".

Question

What does the phrase mean/

Answer 1

I hope you're not being disingenuous here! (You can look that up if you don't know what it means).

If not try this website

http://everything2.com/e2node/Do%2520I%2...

and make decide for yourself.

Answer 2

I think Laz nailed it but would like to add that with the wisdom of age comes the awareness of alternative outcomes.  The tentativeness and indecision aren't indicative of senility but of a moral quandry: what will happen if I do, what will happen if I don't?  How will the world, as small as my world may have become, be affected by this action.

For what it's worth, the Allman Brothers weren't thinking T.S. Eliot with their Eat a Peach album title.  While Duane Allman was killed when his motorcycle struck a peach truck, with the subsequent album title seemingly a tragic sick joke or biker choice of a way to abandon this earthly grove, Duane had previously been quoted in an interview about how every time he visited Georgia, he "ate a peach for peace".  Just a throwaway line about his humble contribution to the peace movement (although how the world benefits from this act is uncertain).  Perhaps, Duane had resolved his moral quandry and determined that there was some ultimate benefit to eating that peach.  Yeah.  Sure.

Answer 3

The purpose behind the question "Do I dare eat a peach?" is to illustrate the tentitivness that comes with age. The key line around here is the repetition of "I grow old, I grow old". Prufrock is unsure and meek. He asserts

And indeed there will be time  

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

And he does wonder, twice. In his youth he asks the gargantuian question:

Do I dare    

Disturb the universe?

With age this withers and shrinks, as he does, into:

Do I dare eat a peach?

His world shrinks and decays, the realisation that he is much less than he had hoped, that he is one who is diminished. Therefore, his question 'do I dare eat a peach?' is an elegent illustration by Eliot of the ravaged tentitivness of age and the diminishing of a man.