What Is The Mood Of The Red Wheelbarrow

This paper will be analyzing the poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams. . Williams, who was a medical doctor by profession, wrote the poem in 1923, a year of rising economic desolation, while tending to a patient (Teicher). He wrote the poem in the same amount of time it takes to read it, rather quickly, when he looked out a window and saw a red wheelbarrow in the rain, and perhaps linked it to the pain his patient was feeling (Teicher). Only eight lines long, the poem uses direct adjectives and halting pauses to tell the reader not only what life is like on the farm, but how desperate it is The beginning of the poem, so much depends/ upon (557) Has neither capitalization nor commas, and instead invokes the feeling of heaviness as the poem tells the reader that so much depends-with a sharp drop to just the word upon. Upon what? The reader does not know, and the isolation of these lines gives rise to slight dread: what is being depended on, and upon what?

The reader’s question is answered in this next line: so much is dependent upon a red wheel barrow. a red wheel/barrow (557) Here is the first use of an adjective in the poem. In literature, red is typically associated with power and

Once more, there is a pause between white and chicken, to make the reader question, what is white? When chicken is read, perhaps the reader is confused- what does a chicken have to do anything? Firstly, it helps finalize the location of the poem; what is the most probable location that has both a wheelbarrow and a chicken? A farm. Secondly, poultry is a nutritious, almost universally enjoyed food that is easy to raise. In the 1920’s, the Dust Bowl was beginning to take place, so perhaps the farm is experiencing a drought, and the only water the chicken has to drink is from the wheelbarrow (Britannica). Thus, the red wheelbarrow is sustaining the innocent chicken with