In his 1956 poem “Howl,” Allen Ginsberg paints a vision of America that is both apocalyptic and somewhat hopeful for the future. Ginsberg, one of the leading figures of the counterculture Beat Writers of the 1940s and 1950s, presents America as a land in the grip of a capitalist conglomerate that stifles the individual spiritually, artistically, and economically. For Ginsberg, American spaces are full of disillusionment, discontent, and dystopian ideals. Ginsberg believes, however, that this could change under the right conditions and thus make America a much kinder and more sympathetic state than the one it currently finds itself in. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The poem, separated into three sections and a footnote, blends autobiography with philosophy and an illusion of prophetic insight. The first section, for example, constitutes a form of compendium of the exploits of Ginsberg and his friends, most of them other Beat Writers, in New York in the early postwar period. These personal descriptions, often deeply sensitive and sometimes even admitting criminality, contrast with the highly apocalyptic and prophetic second section in which Ginsberg attempts to explore the level of capitalist greed and oppression in America. The third section moves once again towards the confessional and it is in this section that Ginsberg offers some form of deliverance from the apocalyptic vision of America. This makes American spaces, although almost always far from professing a positive ideal, still full of meaning for Ginsberg. This is essential to reading the poem, as one realizes that every action, person, and space described has some form of importance. This gives the feeling that Ginsberg can find philosophical value in the most mundane activities or places. A subway ride, for example, from Battery Park to the Bronx, becomes an individual "having chained himself to the subways for the endless ride from Battery to the sacred Bronx."[1] A subway ride becomes in Ginsberg's imagination a symbol of the "endless" cycle of capitalist oppression, even going so far as to compare this cycle to slavery, like Henry David Thoreau in Walden. The Bronx, however, is described as "holy," alluding to the fascination Ginsberg and other Beats found with the culture of African Americans. Space, for Ginsberg, is therefore something that is full of meaning and significance. One of the main reasons American spaces are presented in “Howl” as anything but utopian is that they played a key role in the repression and annihilation of individuality. for Ginsberg's circle of friends and, as a whole, for the American people. The first two lines of "Howl" are: "I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical and naked, dragging themselves at dawn through the Negro streets in search of a dose of anger ". [Lines 1-2] These "best minds" could be interpreted as other Beat Writers, such as Jack Kerouac or William Burroughs, whom Ginsberg held in great esteem, or, simply, as a glowing look at the American population in general. By presenting the destruction of these “great minds” in the past tense, Ginsberg immediately sets a tone of despair and mourning, with the “hungry hysterical nude” even inducing pity. Allusions to black culture are once again made in "Negro Streets", referring to many Beats living in neighborhoods like Harlem and the Bronx. These are these pitiful “great minds”avant-garde artists who are the focus of the first section of the poem, the word “who” [line 4], a reference to these “great minds,” is repeated at the beginning of each line. starting at line 4 in Section I. Keeping the focus on the "who" in Section I, the largest and most expansive section of the poem, Ginsberg maintains a constant relationship between space and individual, thus making each verse meaningful to the people who inhabit the American space. By keeping the poem's focus on the individual and mixing prophecy with autobiography, Ginsberg allows himself a much narrower subjective reading of American space and its postwar dystopian ideals. Examples such as witnessing the "horrors of the iron dreams of Third Avenue and stumbling to the unemployment offices" [Line 44] and throwing "their watches off the roof to vote for eternity in outside of time, and alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade.” [Ginsberg, line 54] This presentation of being a victim of the capitalist system is, as Ginsberg writes in his essay “Notes Written on the Final Recording of Howl,” “a lament for the lamb in America.”[1 ] This idea that America has sacrificed itself to the capitalist system is further underlined by the segments in Section I where references outside of America's borders are made. Sexual freedom outside of repressive American society, for example, is evoked in the line "who blew and were blown by these human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love." [Line 37] This shows how, outside of America, the "best minds" are able to realize their potential as, says Ann Charters, "spokespersons for people rejected by the mainstream, whom it s It concerns drug addicts, homosexuals, emotionally dispossessed people or others. the mentally ill. »[2] It is America itself, Ginsberg suggests, and all the spaces encompassed under its banner that can be considered modern dystopias. If Section I is, as Ginsberg describes it, the lamb, Part II is “the monster.” of mental consciousness which attacks the Lamb”.[1] In this section, the emphasis shifts from the anaphoric use of “who” to the Canaanite demigod “Moloch.” [Line 80] Moloch, in the Old Testament, is a demigod who is traditionally worshiped through the sacrifice of children by fire, but is used in this section of the poem as a representation of the capitalist system or, rather, of America. in its entirety. Ginsberg used this figure after taking the hallucinogenic peyote in San Francisco in 1954 and witnessing Moloch in the form of a hotel. Bill Morgan describes this moment, in his book The Typewriter is Holy, as "a horrible and terrifying sight, but one that gave Ginsberg new insight into the greed of man."[2] I believe it is in Section II that Ginsberg makes the most striking and impactful impression on the reader with this vision of America furthest from utopia. Ginsberg embodies Moloch as the twentieth-century American city in the phrase: “Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows!” Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose chimneys and antennas crown the cities! [Line 84]This image of an American city, suggested to be New York, presents Moloch, the capitalist system, as a kind of religious deity. Skyscrapers become signs of his glory and power as the American people live their lives behind “a thousand blind windows,” ignoring the cycle of which they are a part. The image of the city crowned with chimneys andAntennae shows the power Moloch wields over America, encompassing the roles of church, state, and economics. This idea that capitalism has become a religion for the disillusioned American people is echoed in the phrase “They broke their backs lifting Moloch into heaven!” Sidewalks, trees, radios, tons! Raise to Heaven the city that exists and is everywhere around us! [Line 89] The American people followed the example of many ancient civilizations, reinforcing references to the biblical figure of Moloch, by building large idols and temples, in the form of office buildings and skyscrapers, in the name of capitalism. Deluding himself, Ginsberg believes, with the idea of ​​having created a celestial utopia, that the inhabitants of America have become blind to the apathetic and superficial world in which they live. This blindness to the level of capitalist worship, Ginsberg suggests, occurs despite the obvious horror and suffering that the system imposes on the individual. The sentence ending with “Screaming children under the stairs!” Boys sobbing in armies! Old people crying in parks! [Line 80] shows the evolution of the male individual under the reign of Moloch. The “screams under the stairs” are an allusion to protection from bombs, while the “sobs in armies” and “crying in parks” could be seen as representing the psychological trauma induced by participation in conflict. According to Ginsberg, blind worship of capitalism is directly linked to involvement in war. “Moloch in whom I sit alone! Moloch in whom I dream of Angels! [Line 86] further highlights the desolation, isolation, and lack of true spirituality within a capitalist society. The relationship that this individual repression has with space is that it solidifies the purpose and effects of the capitalist cycle. If these are the American people, Ginsberg asks, what is America like? In Section III, Ginsberg uses anaphora again, this time using the refrain "I'm with you in Rockland", an allusion to the time Ginsberg spent with Carl Solomon. , to whom the poem is dedicated, in a psychiatric center, with mental illness also being a key motif in the poem. Thanks to the poem addressed to Solomon, with the first line of section III reading “Carl Solomon!” I am with you in Rockland,” [Line 94] the reader becomes one with Solomon as the same character. Solomon, for Ginsberg, symbolizes the individual defeated by the authoritarian hand of the American bourgeois capitalist ideal and therefore can also be seen as a representation of the common American individual. It is in this section that Ginsberg brings the greatest sense of hope and salvation to his dystopian vision of America. Through the chorus “I am with you in Rockland,” Ginsberg presents a sense of unity and empathy with the reader, with Rockland coming to signify a more personal version of what Moloch represented earlier. This sense of unity and solidarity is further emphasized by Ginsberg's references to Marxist ideology, a dangerous thing to do in America at the height of McCarthyism. “I am with you in Rockland where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the national fascist Golgotha” [Line 107] suggests a sense of rebellion, using religious references to further emphasize these ideas. The juxtaposition of socialism and fascism is, for Ginsberg, a confrontation between his ideas of what good and evil are, while the contrast between Judaism and Christianity represents not an idea of ​​religious superiority but rather simply a faith and a personal belief, with Ginsberg.