Philip Levine's 'Bobby Hefka'

Philip Levine’s “Bobby Hefka” develops a deeper message, theme, of American society in the 1940s where people avoid racism and its many other issues. The poem exposes the fact that with society, avoiding its issues, they are not learning from them thus, society isn’t making any progress. Levine pinpoints a main cause to the stagnant society which is the stresses of World War II. His use of a metaphor guides us; the readers, to get a grasp on the size and prevalence of World War II in society, “Beyond him the dark clouds of 1945 / were clustering over Linwood” (33-34). The author is comparing the war to dark clouds and gives 1945 a negative connotation to help highlight that it represents the war. This metaphor provides the text with a meaning and with it we can decipher that society is solely focusing on the war and can’t address other issues, racism.

After Bobby admits his racism to the class, the other students don’t draw any lessons out of it thus, “nothing had changed” for these students. Instead, the “the dark clouds of 1945” make them become afraid where they can completely block out an issue of racism. This next device helps develop another idea to the text, an anaphora when he writes that, “The last time I saw Bobby Hefka he was driving / a milk truck for Dairy Cream, he was married…He handed / me an icy quart bottle of milk” (43-48). By Levine repeating the phrase “he” the message that’s emphasized is that even though he is racist he is still a normal human being. Levine’s hidden meaning behind this device is that due to society, ignoring concerns, Bobby’s racism was able to remain through his adult life. However, now that the dark clouds have passed society will begin to judge his views and people such as Mr. Jaslow will want to confront his