Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
I wonder why he had every word or concept end in an exclamation? Is it to scare the readers because the ideas used are pretty negative? Is it just to make the point of entire work?
seventytwo hours
Ginsberg is very specific in his descriptions throughout the poem. This is the second "hour/time" mentioned and they were both exact numbers. Specificity is key.
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall
I feel like this line symbolizes a sense of paranoia and what can go through one's mind when triggered. Then you have to question what exactly is this "Terror" they talk about? Is it something real and physical or is it something they are exaggerating and it's in their head.?
Stray melodies of dim remembered runes
Although this poem is supposed to sound somewhat hopeful and assertive, I can't help but have this somber feeling reading this line.
America
I find it interesting how although he says America has "fed [me] bread of bitterness...I love this cultured hell". The irony between loving something that has wronged you and caused you pain.
Through the long night until the silver break Of day the little gray feet know no rest
I see this line as though they have stay awake and walking as a means to stay alive. Whether to make money, or to just be safe, to have no rest would be mentally exhausting.
We claim no part with racial dearth
I found that this was a really beautiful way of saying, the lack of diversity isn't on us and the color of skin. There are other attributes that have contributed to black population numbers.
Before the urgency of Youth’s behest!
I feel like you could definitely say this today because the youth are the future. With the youth's urgency, there is a stress to make change for the better for the future.
I want to hear the chanting Around a heathen fire Of a strange black race.
I feel like with this section, it puts a more "savage" image in your mind.The comparison between black people savages has never not been around, so for her to put the image of black people chanting around a fire, it really puts an image in your head.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed While the Weary Blues echoed through his head. He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
It's almost as if he is os numb to the pain and thoughts that when he is sleeping, he can't escape them. Yet, he is still able to sleep through the madness.
He did a lazy sway . . . He did a lazy sway . . .
The repetition here "coincidentally" mimics the action. A back and forth in swaying and a back and forth in phrasing.
Nobody’ll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then.
Hughes' specific use of the word "dare" really stands out here. IT makes this half of the stanza so much more impactful. His demand for respect and equality is on full display.
FIRST
I wonder why he chose to fully capitalize the whole word? And why this word? Because there are no other words similarly shown.
We have tomorrow Bright before us Like a flame.
Honestly, this line is just really beautiful and calming and is really positive.
So for generations in the mind of America, the Negro has been more of a formula than a human being –a something to be argued about, condemned or defended, to be “kept down,” or “in his place,” or “helped up,” to be worried with or worried over, harassed or patronized, a social bogey or a social burden.
This definitely has continued today. With the war on drugs, prison industrial complex, and police brutality, black people remain the undervalued citizen and human being.
To these the Negro artist can give his racial individuality, his heritage of rhythm and warmth, and his incongruous humor that so often, as in the Blues, becomes ironic laughter mixed with tears. But let us look again at the mountain.
This is a prime example of what is too black? What is not black enough? How much blackness and individuality will white culture allow until they've had enough?
He is never taught to see that beauty
As a black woman, I pay attention to proper representation and support. So for me to read this line is really hard hitting. black beauty is something that is still unrecognized today. The fact that black people are telling themselves to never see their melanin as beauty is disturbing and it is something very real still. Just like for the fact that when picking a sentence to analyze, this was the only line surrounded by yellow, not annotated.
His family is of what I suppose one would call the Negro middle class: people who are by no means rich yet never uncomfortable nor hungry–smug, contented, respectable folk, members of the Baptist church.
I feel like black, middle class people are never really talked about. So for Hughes to speak about a Negro family that is right in that middle class is notable. For Hughes to take the middle class, black man and show later on in the paragraph "Don't be like niggers" is very well and true because by being middle class, that negro man is already closer to being white man than a poor black man.
There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain There is not even solitude in the mountains But red sullen faces sneer and snarl From doors of mudcracked houses
Here we have the dry/wet motif and it is once again symbolizing how hope and belief are connected to dry and wet. "Dry sterile thunder without rain" could symbolize the sense of unfulfilled hopes. We are so used to rain and thunder going together, so when the rain doesn't arrive, it is similar to hopes and dreams not arriving as well.
Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains Which are mountains of rock without water If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
In this excerpt, I found the motifs of dry/wet, and desire frustrated. The concept of only having rocks available and no water could be symbolizing how in this spiritual waste land, there is no hope or beliefs that are able to grow and develop. Water signifies purity so for there to be no water and only dry rock, it is difficult to find said hope. The desperation for need of water really comes through with the narrators voice. While he is waiting and wishing for accessible water, he says "amongst he rock one cannot stop and drink" I take this line to mean that if someone were to need a drink of water it compares to people overthinking and how both of those things don't occur in the waste land.
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
I wonder why he chose to make something as simple as dust seem fearful? As if anyone would be intimidated with dust, his threat is confusing.
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see.
If he is forbidden to see the card, then how does he know that it's blank? Why is he forbidden from seeing the card in the first place?
The lady of situations
I wonder what this is supposed to imply? Is it supposed to mean she finds herself in trouble a lot? Is it a positive or negative for her to be the "lady of situations"?
after deer going by fields of goldenrod in the stifling heat of September
This part of the poem is so descriptive. I feel like as a reader who intently visualizes scenes while reading, it is really easy to just experience what the author is saying.
or the ribbed north end of Jersey with its isolate lakes and
The first thing I notice is odd format of each of the stanzas. The first and last line in a stanza are longer while the second line is 1-2 short words.
“Image”
I wonder why he chose to "" and capitalize "Image"?
cautions gained by experience
This stuck out to me because it's essentially through living through the good times and the bad times we learn from those experiences.
Man,
I just find how she writes "Man" odd. It seems out of place yet powerful at the same time.
Cut down, and all the clamour that was he,
This makes me think that even the greatest of the great can be taken down and die.
What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appall?– If design govern in a thing so small.
Why did he pose all of those questions in the last stanza? I just found it odd how he chose to put it in the end rather than the beginning when those questions could be answered. But since its in the end, he leaves his readers with no answers at all
I doubted if I should ever come back.
The fact that he says that he doubted the path he had chosen really sets a tone of how we can relate to regret and doubts in life.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
This sudden exclamation really jumps out at you, it seems very sudden and unexpected.
, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick
i wonder why he chose to start and end the poem in the same ways
y pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, like mites in a quarrel
the repetition of the tick tick tick and the integration of the mites is an interesting way to start the poem
On earth again of home, paused warily
if he wasn't on earth then where did he go? Also, why isn't earth capitalized?
“Well, Mr. Flood,
Similar to Henry Adams, except not as formal, Mr Flood is referring to himself in the Third Person. Different from Adams though, he is saying it to no one nearby because the town is empty.
I’m really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper
Once again she is "haunted" by the wallpaper
I take pains to control myself—before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.
I feel like this is the first real time she is realizing how annoying she is finding john. She is finally realizing how exhausting it is to behave for John.
There comes John, and I must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word.
I really like how this quote gives the reader the urgency to feel the anxiety of having John around. it gives a whole new meaning to the short story
Liberty; in his tears and curses the God he implored had Freedom in his right hand
I find this line extremely powerful. The emotional toll that one has to endure and the feeling of relief when freedom is finally granted.
I answer seldom a word
I feel like this line is super important because it holds this power and maturity and it makes the reader realize just how difficult just living was back then.
The force was wholly new
There was such a rollercoaster of events going on in this one paragraph. The author speaks of the force as this complex and versatile thing that should be feared.
complexities of the new Daimler motor, and of the automobile, which, since 1893,
I wonder why he goes off on these random tangents throughout the whole piece. This line for example is just unnecessary to the story yet there is half a paragraph written about it.
Adams
I wonder why Adams would write in the third person if it only adds confusion to the narration and characters
They Lion grow
I think this line does represent "lie and grow". I think it symbolizes that as an individual grows, their ways of manipulation and cunning can also grow. So these two concepts of lying and growing go hand in hand with one another.
Come they Lion from the reeds of shovels, The grained arm that pulls the hands
I see this as though through all their perseverance of the oppositions they have faced, they have come out stronger and grown as individuals which is an important message for this poem.