Analysis of Carl Sandburg’ s poem “Chicago”

Carl Sandburg, in his poem Chicago, provides a dynamic and a loutish description with a certain tone of social criticism about the city of Chicago. Throughout the poem, the author makes use of literary devices, such as personification, apostrophe, similes, and repetition, giving the city a human-like representation with an intense personality in a realistic way. Also, the contrast between positive and negative qualities makes his poetry direct and concise which sings the glories and the penalties of the city and its people. His poetry is rich in vocabulary and captures the reader's attention, allowing him to identify the implicit messages within the poem.

The poem begins with five short lines in which Sandburg uses personification to show the reader how important and powerful is this city. He starts describing Chicago as a "Hog Butcher,” “Tool Maker,” and "Stacker of Wheat". By listing the important jobs in Chicago, he pictures a burly and tough city. Even more, when he describes it as “Stormy, husky, brawling,” and “City of the Big Shoulders”(1-5). In the second stanza (6-14), Sandburg uses apostrophe when he speaks directly to the city and starts treating it as a person. (“They tell me you are…”) The use of this literary device gives the reader the impression that the city is pretty alive and is a human with his own personality. Throughout the poem, the reader can find, once again, a several examples of personification that portrays the city in great detail: “Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with with teeth” (18). Other literary devices, such as similes, and repetition are employed in the poem. Similes are present on lines 13 and 19 . “Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitte...

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...entioned the good and the bad things. Even though the city has crime and prostitution, he never covers up the rough edges of what the city is. This proves that the city is full of vigorous people and that they constantly try to look strong towards the other cities around them by being organized and hard working. Explaining the city as it is without dressing it up, also helped show his sincerity with the reader. Standburg’s perspective and poem are very admirable in the way that he is able to realize that his city is not the greatest, and it has ups and downs. Despite of that, he calls it “his city” and shows to be proud of it, constituting a good example of citizen since many times most people reject their city, looking forward to living somewhere else. Even though Chicago is not the neatest city of the world, they are still proud of who they are and what they do.