When placed in an environment of high stimulation, population, and activity, one may begin to feel the desire to escape or detach from civilization. Such environments, particularly urban cities, are often made up of a variety of tall buildings, which contain many small living spaces. These buildings are overcrowded and cluttered with residents and have quickly turned into human colonies or hives. Living in a hive may seem like a cramped and messy lifestyle, but it can also create an emerging sense of self-awareness. In Jean Toomer's poem, Beehive, the use of imagery, analogy, metaphor and character promotes connections between rural and urban spaces and suggests that urban space has the potential to encourage self-reflection. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Natural imagery is used in vivid descriptions of modern urban life as the speaker observes the bustling world around them. Analogies between crowded buildings and their inhabitants, hives and their bees are used to describe the chaos of everyday citizens as they metaphorically produce honey for the combs of the world capital. Also included is a character, intoxicated by the sweetness of such honey, who yearns for the peace and serenity of the rural space. Critics favor Toomer's vigilance in the face of "the loneliness and melancholy of being just one among millions" (Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, The Paris Review) as well as the "effective strategy of weakening the position of speaker” by Toomer using an “introspective speaker type” (Daniela Kukrechtova, Desymbolized Lyrical Cityscapes of Jean Toomer, Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, and Gwendolyn Brooks). The aura of loneliness and desolation remains constant as the speaker describes his desire to escape urban civilization in a thoughtful manner. Jean Toomer immediately describes vivid images of the eternal bustle of the bees working in their hive: "There are a million bees...bees going in and out of the moon...silver bees buzzing intensely." As the bees make their way through their hive, physical images are applied as the speaker watches them. The speaker, a “drone” (male bee), describes his current physical state: “Lying on his back, reading honey,” which indicates a feeling of solitude and relaxation. While the speaker is in this physical state, he begins to develop a desire to "fly beyond the moon" and "twist himself forever in a distant farm flower." The natural imagery of the graceful moon and the desolate farm flower is used to describe the speaker's need for open nature in the rural space, while the physical imagery of flying in the distance and rolling comfortably curled up is used to express the speaker's desperation and urgency to break away from urban civilization and find solitary peace. There appears to be a shift in imagery as the speaker chooses to describe his own desires instead of continuing to describe the urban chaos around him, such a shift perhaps being due to the condensed environment of the speaker. The change in imagery also "reveals a shift in the speaker's consciousness, from spiritual identification to spiritual alienation" (Robert B. Jones, The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer). Thus, the speaker's emotional and spiritual transition is made more recognizable through the use of various images of urban bustle and rural tranquility.The most prominent use of analogy in this poem includes a beehive and an urban city. Toomer describes the city as a “black hive,” which instantly gives off a racial perspective. Toomer composed Beehive while residing in Washington, D.C. in the early 1920s, a predominantly African-American city at the time. Therefore, the "black hive" analogy is relevant to the speaker's observations, in that African Americans appeared to be the primary racial group in urban settings at the time the poem was written . The term “hive” can be defined as “an artificial receptacle used to shelter a swarm of bees” (Collins Dictionary). The human "hive" that Toomer describes in this poem exhibits the same qualities, as metropolitan apartments are man-made and used to house many individuals at a time. The analogy of a hive and its bees and a crowded apartment and its inhabitants "describes zero life as being the equivalent of the mass mental activity of bees accepting their role as workers within the collective without questions or struggle” (Chezia Thompson-Cager, Teaching Cane of 1923 by Jean Toomer). In other words, the analogy expresses the weariness, helplessness, and ordinariness that the speaker captures when observing the routines of many urban workers. The weariness, fatigue, and congestion in which the speaker notices seem to affect his view of urban life. After observing the "bees coming in and out of the moon", he begins to feel the need to "fly beyond the moon" and escape the "wax cell" of the world he finds himself in. The speaker also says of honey: “a precious product of the work of the hive” (Gerry Carlin, reading “Cane” by Jean Toomer). Toomer seems to use honey as a possible metaphor for "culture or love, or community and the riches contained in social relationships" (Gerry Carlin, reading "Cane" by Jean Toomer). Toomer uses rural metaphors, such as hives, bees, and honey, to describe aspects of the urban environment, such as apartments, the working class, and culture. Thus, the analogies and metaphors of urban environments bring great emotion to the speaker and allow him to become more contemplative, because a connection between rural and urban spaces is also established. The use of character becomes present in Toomer's use of a first person perspective. The character identifies himself as a "drone", a lazy and idle male bee. The drone lies on its back and watches the hard-working bees while honey flows from its mouth. As the drone observes the urban modernization around it, it begins to develop feelings of unhappiness and discomfort. A moment of introspection arises, as he “realizes that lying on his back and drinking honey ultimately does not satisfy him” (Daniela Kukrechtova, Desymbolized Lyrical Cityscapes of Jean Toomer, Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams and Gwendolyn Brooks). He longs for the simplicity and naturalness of the countryside, because the city seems “artificial, forced and sterile” (Tania Friedel, Racial Discourse and Cosmopolitanism in Twentieth Century African American Writing). Toomer uses the character of a drone to express his desire for eternal freedom, whether psychological, racial, or environmental. As the drone lies on its back and observes the city, it "feels the effects of industrialism" and becomes contemplative as it "struggles to find its identity in the modern world" (Kevin R. Raczinski, Jean Toomer , Sherwood Anderson and the Complexity of Modern Black Consciousness). The drone gets drunk on "silver honey", "a representation of the money generated by.