ipl-logo

Allen Ginsberg's A Supermarket In California

1290 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Whitman’s vision of america

Poetry tells the story of unsung heroes and stories that are subjugated by societal standards. This analysis covers the homosexual tone present in Allen Ginsberg’s, “A Supermarket in California” and the rest of the poem’s undertons that provides a critique on modern consumerism. The poem is set up in free verse and the theme follows this direction by not following the modern pattern of life. The speaker of the poem is alluded to be Allen Ginsberg himself and in the case of “A Supermarket in California”, I believe that the interjection provides meaning by developing a kinship with Walt Whitman. The poem follows a daydreamer and his misadventures in a supermarket with an old, great and deceased poet. The interpretation of the poem is meant to …show more content…

Allen Ginsberg, I believe chose this style to represent liberation and his admiration for his favorite poet. The poetic element is structured in a free verse and the meter or rhyming is not set for a traditional reading. The line breaks give the reader a moment of pondering to consume each line. The lines are setup like aisles setup to stop traffic. The speakers first lines set up the poem and the stanza, “What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I/walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache!” (1-2). The stanza has the speaker conjuring up Walt Whitman and he seems to be using him as a …show more content…

The literary device used is imagery about homosexuality and consumerism. The rhetorical situation about the reader interpreting the internal monologue of the speaker and with taking the face value of the poem or searching for innuendos. Allen Ginsberg was part of The Beat Generation and were a counterculture to the rapid standardization of consumerism with sexist roles (Ginsberg 129). The imagery is playing being biased to show a commonality.
The speaker feels that America has lost its way and is unrecognizable. The meaning is about our consumption of products being used and then easily forgotten like the waters of Lethe which led to forgetfulness (Ciuk). Walt Whitman’s America “imagined America” probably never existed but Allen Ginsberg uses him as a guide for a better tomorrow. As America ages her citizens romanticize the old times making them softer memories.
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,

Show More
Related
792 Words | 4 Pages

This stanza is also important to the poem

Read More
1113 Words | 5 Pages

The poem, Useless Boys,is one that portrays a feeling of indignation, rebellion and finally, understanding by two boys who grew up with bitter views of their fathers’ onerous jobs. The narrator believes that the only reason his father stays at his job is for the money. In his naivety the son does not realize that at times living selfishly is the way things have to be. Sometimes commitments are made in a self-sacrificial and cowardly manner. No matter how “wrecking” his father’s career, he stays in order to provide for his family.

Read More
729 Words | 3 Pages

The working poor are a class of people that have their own culture that can only be understood through full participation in it; without proper acquaintance with their lifestyle, the working poor cannot be adequately examined or criticized. The author is skilled and effective in delivering her opinion of the working poor in the United States at the time; she includes numerous details and examples as support. The first paragraph of the piece is a long description of the restaurant, Jerry’s, and its conditions. This passage serves as one of the many visuals that she includes to evoke thought from the reader. Ehrenreich uses the passage to support her claims and opinions of the restaurant and the working poor as a whole.

Read More
752 Words | 4 Pages

Since the poem is a Blues, the phonological structure of the text is of great importance and at the same time it cannot be expected to find many regularities. This assumption can be validated at first glance: There is no veritable rhyme scheme. On the other hand, there two dysillabic internal rhymes {\tql}bunch, hunch{\tqr} (l.1) and {\tql}sputter, gutter{\tqr} (l.2-3). Still the author uses a lot of other sound patterns as for example Alliteration, Consonance, Assonance and Onomatopoeia. For each only one or two examples are given due to their high occurrence.

Read More
619 Words | 3 Pages

Some see the ugliness in the most beautiful things but others see the beauty in the most hideous of things. The poem William Street by Kenneth Slessor demonstrates this thesis statement as he talks about how he sees the beauty in the street that is renowned for its ugliness and the unsightly surroundings it is engulfed with. This poem's literary techniques and imagery gives the readers an insight into the environment and the surroundings that are seen vividly even though they are described through the use of foreshadowing. Each stanza gives the readers a different understanding on what is going on during the poem.

Read More
692 Words | 3 Pages

Walt Whitman was an American poet and journalist born on May 31, 1819. Whitman was influenced by transcendentalism, which was an idea emphasizing that to understand nature, one must analyze the reasoning or process behind it. Whitman had done many writings throughout his life that had been inspirations for other poets. For example, in the spring of 1855, Whitman published “Leaves of Grass”, which was a collection of twelve unnamed poems. This writing was enticed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who thought that the collection of poems were “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom.”

Read More
514 Words | 3 Pages

In the poem “America” by Tony Hoagland, the author discussed the American lifestyle, and the culture presently in his own perspective and opinion. I agree with his opinion about the people in America, and the atrocious reality that we are living in today. This present reality that Hoagland addressed reflects my view and my perspective not just about the people who lives in America, but innumerable people that lives on Earth. Hoagland, not just criticized the lifestyle and the way Americans are living, but also the materialism that exists in most of the people.

Read More
808 Words | 4 Pages

Explication of ' "Hard Rock Returns to Prison” In the society, people focus much on heroes to see whether they will fall or remain as heroes. The poem ‘Hard Rock Returns to Prison...’ is a narrative tale of life in prison. ‘Hard Rock’ is a hero in the prisons. Every member of the prison are out to see how he has lost his lobotomy.

Read More
835 Words | 4 Pages

In the two poems the reader can see many examples of figurative language. In the poem, “I Hear America Singing,” Whitman

Read More
2326 Words | 10 Pages

By doing this Whitman introduces himself and at the same time identifies with the reader. He also states that he should be celebrated not only by himself, but also by the reader because they are the same. He also gives off a feeling that his writing is true and good, we get the feeling he is one of us and at the same time a poet. This leads to comparing Whitman with a preacher or public speaker of some sort, he wishes to be

Read More
450 Words | 2 Pages

It can also give us implied information or moods that aren’t supposed to be direct. In line 38, it is stated,”When you dream.”. This is implying that even when they sleep that they cannot escape the diversity and discrimination they receive everyday. In stanza 1 it states, “My brother and I… decided to get the ‘good food’ over on the other side of the tracks”. This makes the readers think they believe in the discrimination; that anything of the other people’s is better because those people are better than the Watt’s people.

Read More
602 Words | 3 Pages

The speaker opens the poem with, “Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud / Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison / Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes / Where you can’t tell the show from the commercials”. First, the speaker saying that a student is saying this shows that humans are innocent until overwhelmed with consumerism and greed. Second, the listing of the stores show that Americans are persuaded into thinking that corporations are the only way of life. Lastly, not being able to tell the difference in the show and the commercial is the way of the speaker getting across to the reader that Americans are so brainwashed by television that they cannot tell that the show itself is persuading

Read More
718 Words | 3 Pages

In the 1800’s, America was the subject of many romantic visions and musings. The British and East Coasters alike saw everything west of Appalachia as a wild wonderland: home to cowboys, adventure, and opportunity. Oscar Wilde, a renowned British author and satirist, voyaged across America to test the truth of these claims. Afterwards, he published his findings and opinions in a piece known as Impressions of America. In the piece, he makes it clear that America did not live up to his expectations, and would disappoint his readers as well.

Read More
914 Words | 4 Pages

Whitman’s experience as a wound-dresser at the time of the war gave him a unique perspective of the men and women on the front lines. One way he shows the realism is through his free verse style that doesn’t have a rhyming pattern or many other traditional poetry rules. This gives his poetry sort of an edge that lets the realism come through. The way Whitman gets the audience’s attention in his free verse style is through repetition of words that rhyme but with no necessary order. One example of this is his use of the first-person pronoun I in “The Wound-Dresser” for example at the beginning of most stanzas Whitman starts out by saying “I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep, … I dress the perforated shoulder, … I am faithful, I do not give out” (Levine 78).

Read More
1125 Words | 5 Pages

In this grand poem, Whitman glorifies the unity of all people and life. He embraces the geographical diversity as well as the diversity of culture, work, as well as sexuality or beliefs. Whitman’s influence sets American dreams of freedom, independence, and self-fulfillment, and changes them for larger spiritual meaning. Whitman appreciates hard work as well as being simple and non-egotistical. His major ideas are things such as soul, good health, as well as the love of nature.

Read More

More about Allen Ginsberg's A Supermarket In California

Related Topics

Open Document