Howl Ginsberg Analysis
The times of the 1950s are a time of great uncertainty in America. The United States of the past described by poets such as Walt Whitman does not exist anymore. In its place is an industrialized America, a hegemonic America that dominates the world with super weapons, neutrons and death. This new America creates great amount tension in its society. Howl, by Allen Ginsberg, is a response to these tensions. Ginsberg divided Howl into three sections to describe the ones howling, the causes of the Howl and how these people can redeem themselves. In this poem, Ginsberg starts each part with a general discussion before narrowing to a personal connection and then ending higher level, meta-conscious reflection. Within the superstructures of each section
…show more content…
This climate is far different from the sugar coated vision of America. The mainstream describes this time period as a time of prosperity and the rise of the middle class. It is a time of American leadership in the free world. Ginsberg sees it differently. He sees society in a state of despair and decline with hopelessness rampant. The cluster of …show more content…
The drug using, alcohol chugging best minds are often labeled as mentally deranged. They “threw potato salad at CCNY lectures on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide”(65) and were sentenced to a bunch of cruel treatments at institutions including “hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong &amnesia”(66). Ginsberg used the turn line in section one to allow one to see that these people are not so distant from him nor his readers. They are no more than Ginsberg’s mother who was labeled insane and was abused by the institution that she lost everything, material possessions and even the tiniest trace of hope with “the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement windows, and the last door closed at 4 AM and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply… and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination-“(70). Carl Solomon, another one of these people, is so close to Ginsberg that he says if Carl is “not safe I am not safe” (71). These brilliant people are locked in mental institutions, outcasts of society, and are no different than Ginsberg who was also shunned for political and sexual orientation. Ginsberg then used a secular prayer in the final moments of part one to reflect on his connections with the oppressed
This climate is far different from the sugar coated vision of America. The mainstream describes this time period as a time of prosperity and the rise of the middle class. It is a time of American leadership in the free world. Ginsberg sees it differently. He sees society in a state of despair and decline with hopelessness rampant. The cluster of …show more content…
The drug using, alcohol chugging best minds are often labeled as mentally deranged. They “threw potato salad at CCNY lectures on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide”(65) and were sentenced to a bunch of cruel treatments at institutions including “hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong &amnesia”(66). Ginsberg used the turn line in section one to allow one to see that these people are not so distant from him nor his readers. They are no more than Ginsberg’s mother who was labeled insane and was abused by the institution that she lost everything, material possessions and even the tiniest trace of hope with “the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement windows, and the last door closed at 4 AM and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply… and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination-“(70). Carl Solomon, another one of these people, is so close to Ginsberg that he says if Carl is “not safe I am not safe” (71). These brilliant people are locked in mental institutions, outcasts of society, and are no different than Ginsberg who was also shunned for political and sexual orientation. Ginsberg then used a secular prayer in the final moments of part one to reflect on his connections with the oppressed