In the poem Howl, Allen Ginsberg challenges the modernity of American culture, which enforces the “best minds” (1) to give up their freedom to conform to the desired sense of normality. Ginsberg states “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked/ dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix” (9). His expression of Moloch The angry fix is what all of these “best minds” look for after being stripped of their freedom to conform to the new American culture after World War II.
The form of Ginsberg’s poem challenges the American culture by resistance from “best minds”. Howl is separated to three sections that include long lines, which look like paragraphs. Resisting traditional poems, Ginsberg arranges long sentences as an alternative to breaking them into separate parts. This free verse poem reveals the unorthodox meter Ginsberg puts in place through the three parts. In the first section he repeats the word “who” before every line to address the “best minds” and how their freedom is annihilated.
Equivalently in the second, he uses the word Moloch. Moloch can be interpreted as the American culture destroying the “best minds” (Ginsberg). Ginsberg states: “Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the/ crossbone soulless jail house and congress of sorrows” (21). He explicitly speaks about politics determining civilization to destroy the “best minds”. The reference to a congress of sorrows relates to America’s politics being the down fall to the best people. Lastly, Ginsberg repeats “I’m with you in Rockland” in the final part. This addressed not just Ginsberg himself is with “you”, the reader, but also all the people who were destroyed by the desired normalc...
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...s” resist through achieving the desire of being normal that the American culture instills. The drained brilliance of the “best minds” from the drugs they use to resist just further encouraged the resistance. They are destroyed by this American culture causing them resist through drugs to lose all brilliance they had before ideals and priorities changed.
In a society, which glorifies the normality of living by restricting people from acting on their insights. Once the “best minds” of the generation have their freedom stripped from them in order to conform to the views in modernity they resist through harsh substances for intoxication. When they realize the power of institutions of government such as prisons and congress it leads them to find an angry fix.
Works Cited
Ginsberg, Allen. Howl, and other poems. San Francisco: City Lights Pocket Bookshop, 1956. Print.
Rosenthal, M.L. "Poet of the New Violence". On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg. Ed. Lewis Hyde. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984. 29-31.
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American poetry, unlike other nations’ poetry, is still in the nascent stage because of the absence of a history in comparison to other nations’ poetry humming with matured voices. Nevertheless, in the past century, American poetry has received the recognition it deserves from the creative poetic compositions of Walt Whitman, who has been called “the father of American poetry.” His dynamic style and uncommon content is well exhibited in his famous poem “Song of Myself,” giving a direction to the American writers of posterity. In addition, his distinct use of the line and breath has had a huge impression on the compositions of a number of poets, especially on the works of the present-day poet Allen Ginsberg, whose debatable poem “Howl” reverberates with the traits of Whitman’s poetry. Nevertheless, while the form and content of “Howl” may have been impressed by “Song of Myself,” Ginsberg’s poem expresses a change from Whitman’s use of the line, his first-person recital, and his vision of America. As Whitman’s seamless lines are open-ended, speaking the voice of a universal speaker presenting a positive outlook of America, Ginsberg’s poem, on the contrary, uses long lines that end inward to present the uneasiness and madness that feature the vision of America that Ginsberg exhibits through the voice of a prophetic speaker.
Raskin Jonah, American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004.
"Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,We, the people, must redeemThe land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.The mountains and the endless plain—All, all the stretch of these great green states—And make America again!” The free America is actually not free, the words on the constitution are just words. The dream has fade away. All these hard working people, all of their bloods and tears had really make the 1 percent of the American’s American dream came true. The reality is such a chaos for the narrator. he has suffered so much from this reality, so he now wants to share his idea to all the readers and try to wake them up, this is not the America that want, this is not the society they want. The American dream does not exist.
Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" is a complex and intriguing poem about the divine in the common world. The minor themes of drugs and sexuality work together to illuminate the major theme of spirituality. The poem reveals through a multitude of sharp images and phrases that everything from drug use to homosexuality to mental illness is holy, even in a world of atom bombs and materialistic America, which Ginsberg considers not to be holy and he refers to as Moloch. As it is stated in Ginsberg's "Footnote To Howl," "The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is/ holy! The tongue and cock and hand and *censored* holy! / Everything is Holy! Everybody's holy! Everywhere is holy!" (3-5).
The 1950’s beatniks gather around coffeeshops, writing and grumbling about the unfairness of the government and society’s closed mind. Today, youth gather around their laptops and type away, despairing over the unfairness of the government and society’s closed mind. Allen Ginsberg’s poetry embodies those angry youth. His unique choices in diction, symbolism and imagery artfully conveys his criticism against the wrongdoings of Uncle Sam and his subjects. Through his poem America, Ginsberg reaches out to all generations of people and exposes the ethical mistakes that both the government and society as a whole make, and these mistakes are classic in the sense that it is always a mistake that everyone keeps repeating.