The older women
The Cumean Sibyl of the epigraph symbolizes the first female group; she is shriveled and reduced to a mere voice. She is old, burdened with a gift of prophecy and longing for death which she prophesies for others but cannot get for herself.
The younger women
The younger women, some of them already past youth, are all to a certain extent victims, either of betrayed or failed love. This include Marie, whose one sweet memory was tinged with fear; Isolde who dies for love; the Hyacinth girl who in a reminiscent mood says: "You gave me hyacinths first a year ago".
Young male characters
The young men are, in varying degrees, are victims of the "death by water". Phlebas, the merchant-traveller, is literally a victim of this death, while the others are drowned figuratively wither in the sea of passion or in the sea of worldly preoccupation.
Aged Male Figures
The group of aged male figures is somewhat vague or fragmentary until it melts into the figure of Tiresias. They are either royal in status or prophetic in voice, first Marie's cousin, the arch-duke, then Ezekiel who addresses the son of man in the desert, the the all important "I" who is fishing in the dull canal in 'The Fire Sermon'.
Tiresias
As a foresuffering seer and poet, Tiresias shows that the poem is basically a lyrical observation on the present, confirmed by a metaphoric relation to past myths. These myths perform the function of projeting the poet's vision, for if the poet's ego is present at all, it is behind the ironic disguise of Tiresias.
Prufrock
In the poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', Prufrock is a name plus a voice. He is not a character cut out of the rest of the universe and equipped with history and a little necessary context like the speaker of a Browning monologue.
