Richard Cory

“Richard Cory” is a poem written by American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson during the late 18th century. The poem is about a man named Richard Cory who was more of symbol than actual person. The author uses Richard Cory as symbol for wealth in America during the American Industrial Revolution to express his feelings of the upper class. The author uses this poem to show class disparity in America while portraying the wealthy class as being surrounded by a veil. Robinson wanted to show that the wealthy class was distinctly separated from the lower class; while also, revealing that the upper class was not genuinely happy by using the surprise ending.

In the poem “Richard Cory” Robinson uses the lower class people to narrate. We know they are the lower class citizens because they are described as “We the people of the pavement”. This shows that the narrator is the people and that there are not of wealthy status. Since the narrator is the people of the pavement they will describe him relative to as they see him. They use words such as “clean shaven” and “imperially slim” to set an imagery of wealth and class. This imagery helps sets the reader’s view of Richard Cory. The words used to describe him were all physical showing that the only things they knew had no substance.

Also in the poem, the narrator uses other forms of literary device such as simile.

Comparing him to a king in the third stanza, the narrator uses this simile to further expand the imagery set earlier in the poem. While the narrator still only uses physical traits to describe Richard Cory, we get another element of Richard Cory. We understand now that Richard Cory is not only wealthy but also has social status of a king or royalty. This proves that the disparity of the two social classes is significant. The people of the pavement no very little of Richard Cory; they only tell us what they know; which is all they see from afar. This adds to the element of surprise towards the end of the

poem.
The more famous part of the poem “Richard Cory” is the last line of the poem. The surprise ending was even more surprising in “Richard Cory” due to all the beforehand imagery set in the beginning of the poem. The surprise was that Richard Cory who was respected, well-known, and envied by the lower class committed suicide. The shocking revelation of the poem stress that there is a veil that separates the two social classes in the poem. The veil hides the truth of the upper class. The truth that money does not buy happiness while also one doesn’t know what other problems another is having. All the town’s people in “Richard Cory” saw a wealthy man who always smiled and “glittered”, but under the surface he was a man of turmoil and discontent. Which led to the taking of his own life