What is the role of women in the poem, and what seems to be Prufrock's relationship to them? How does the author use figures of speech to describe women, and how do those choices imply a theme?

The original title of the poem was "Prufrock Among the Women," and Prufrock, as a balding, weak, neurotic, effete intellectual, is both baffled and intimidated by women. Perhaps the central image of his anxiety is his being "pinned and wriggling on the wall" (58) under the unflinching gaze of women (exacerbated since the women's eyes, much like their "Arms that are braceleted and white and bare" [63], seem eerily disconnected from their bodies). At least here the women seem to be paying attention to him, however hostile they may be. By the end of the poem, Prufrock feels ostracized from the society of women, the "mermaids singing, each to each. / I do not think that they will sing to me" (124-125). Interestingly, Prufrock's obsession with his bald spot rears its ugly head here; the beautiful, vain mermaids comb the "white hair of the waves blown back" (127). As hair is a symbol of virility, Eliot suggests that Prufrock's paralysis is deeply rooted in psychosexual anxiety.