Thursday, October 31, 2024

Howl by Allen Ginsberg | Structure, Summary, Analysis


Hello and welcome to the Discourse. "Howl" is a seminal ‘free verse’ poem by Allen Ginsberg, published in 1956. It is considered one of the most important works in American literature and a defining piece of the Beat Generation. The poem consists of three sections, each addressing different themes and subjects. Overall, the poem is an outcry against society and its treatment of non-conformists.

As the title suggests, it is not a regular poem, rather it is an expression of grief, rage, and sometimes exultation. The free-verse structure allows the poet to describe the characters and their experiences he wishes to talk about. The poem begins with the line “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” which suggests that it is largely an elegy or lament. The poet describes the sufferings of his friends and colleagues (members of the Beat Generation) and tries to make the reader understand their pain and sympathize with them.

Structure of Howl:

The poem is written in free verse, and it has no finite structure. Ginsberg wrote 112 lines set in three sections. The lines are long and look more like paragraphs than stanzas. 

The first section contains 78 long lines often written without punctuation and with a repetitive refrain: "who" which introduces various characters and their experiences. This section depicts the lives of individuals marginalized by society while exploring the themes of themes of madness, addiction, and societal rejection. This section is set in New York City as the poet mentions the geography and features of the city extensively. The speaker also mentions other cities including Birmingham, Baltimore, and Chicago, and he also mentions Canada, Mexico, and Africa, especially Tangier, where Ginsberg’s friend William S. Burroughs spent some time.

The second section contains lines from 79 to 93. These are again long free-verse lines with no strict meter or rhyming scheme. This section has a more analytical tone, critiquing societal norms. In this section, the speaker focuses on the detrimental effects of capitalism and conformity while highlighting the struggles of artists and intellectuals against societal pressures.

The third section is from lines 94-112. It is set in Rockland and mentions Rockland Psychiatric Center, a mental hospital. It is a shorter section and presents a more lyrical quality. The speaker employs a direct and personal tone, reflecting Ginsberg's experiences. He specifically addresses Carl Solomon, a minor poet and friend of Ginsberg, who was hospitalized in Rockland. In this section, the speaker celebrates spiritual awakening and the quest for truth while emphasizing love, connection, and the transformative power of art.

The poet used Anaphora, Alliteration, Repetition, Hyperbole, Symbolism, Imagery, and Enjambment in the poem. The speaker of the poem is Ginsberg himself and he makes it clear in the third part. Ginsberg explains his experiences in this poem but many of the incidents are fictionalized. Ginsberg was never hospitalized in the Rockland Mental Hospital nor was his friend Carl Solomon whom he addresses in the third section. Solomon was admitted to New York State Psychiatric Institute where Ginsberg first met him in a waiting room.

Summary of Howl:

Section 1 Lines 1-78

The poet asserts that the “best minds of [his] generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.” The speaker makes a reference to his friend Carl Solomon and his other friends of the Beat Generation and how they suffered. The poet criticizes the militaristic, dominant culture of America during that time which "destroyed" this generation, drove them into "madness," and left them vulnerable and "hysterical." (1-2)

Often they succumbed to addiction, poverty, and madness. In the third line, he refers to his friends as “angelheaded hipsters.” Most of the poets of the Beat Generation were interested in jazz, African-American culture, and drug use. Ginsberg mentions William Blake, one of his favorite poets as his friend and informs him that his friends are studying in their small-town schools. He complains about how his friends were kicked out of schools and universities for not conforming to the rules and writing things that were considered ‘obscene.’ He alludes to his own expulsion from Colombia University for writing a negative message about the university president on his dorm room window. He returned to the University and graduated in 1948. The speaker says that such expulsion has scared his friends of the authority that has abused them and left them as outcasts.  This is both a physical hardship that has left them poor and unable to honestly earn a living because of their political beliefs and artistic calling, and it is a mental hardship. These people are angry and hysterical because of the culture that suppresses them. However, he mentions them as ‘angelheaded hipsters’ suggesting that these people represent a certain kind of salvation and a struggle for freedom against oppression for the rest of America. He mentions how these ‘best minds’ attended the best universities in America but faced conflict with the established literary norms and intellectual culture, and thus were often ridiculed. He mentions that due to the rise of corporate and industrial culture, many people are living in cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. This urban culture has provided materialistic success to the American middle class but this urban culture also acts like a prison that can entrap the mind and ultimately destroy the individual. The city allows the poet to contemplate things like jazz, poetry, and art with a community of people who see the world in the same way.  Yet, the city is also a destructive force full of injustice.  Ginsberg and his friends repeatedly saw instances of such injustice as police and authorities kept close watch on their activities and used any instance possible to make arrests or charge them with crimes.

Since these Beat artists were unfairly targeted and oppressed, most of them had to go underground, in the world of drugs, violence, and sex. These oppressed young men lived in "waking nightmares" of "drugs...alcohol and cock and endless balls, / incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud..." (22-24). The speaker asserts that these young men and poets were not destroyed by their licentious use of drugs and homosexuality, but they were destroyed because they were forced to hide and suppress these acts, and when they were caught, they were persecuted in a destructive and unjustified manner. Many of them were sent to an asylum where his friends talked for hours, discussing philosophy and nonsense. They scream they vomit, they whisper, and they return to important memories of the “shocks” experienced in hospitals. This alludes to electric shock treatment, which is discussed more clearly in the third section. The speaker asserts that his friends are smart people who studied history, literature, religion, and a lot more who are now considered mad. He says that these people were interested in exploring different people and cultures and thus they often traveled. He contemplated

Many of the figures described in this section suffer from mental illness, reflecting the broader theme of the chaos and fragmentation of contemporary life. Ginsberg portrays their struggles as emblematic of a society that fails to understand or support them. The poet critiques the materialism, conformity, and hypocrisy of American society during the 1950s. He highlights how society stifles creativity and individuality. Ginsberg employs vivid imagery and symbolic language to illustrate the experiences of those he writes about, including references to drug use, sexual liberation, and the search for meaning. The section is rich with cultural references, including nods to jazz, literature, and the Beat Generation, emphasizing the interconnectedness of art and the human experience.  The tone is both mournful and defiant, as Ginsberg expresses empathy for the suffering of his peers while also challenging the status quo.

Section 2 Lines 79-93

The speaker begins the 2nd section by mentioning the death of Ginsberg’s friend Bill Cannastra. He was a friend of Ginsberg’s from his New York days. One evening, while riding the subway train, Bill, attempting a humorous stunt, accidentally fell out of the window of the train they were on. He was dragged behind the train and killed. The speaker says that Bill’s death signifies the increasing power of the evil Moloch - the power to destroy and drive one to insane acts. This part is set in San Francisco. Ginsberg describes Moloch as the monster that preys on The Lambs (referring to the poem The Lamb by William Blake in Songs of Innocence.) The Lambs here refer to the “best minds” and “angel-headed hipsters” who were Ginsberg’s friends.

The speaker describes the economic hardships of those who do not have the luxuries and lives of wealthier people. Moloch, representing the values of materialism, and capitalism, has the power to give to certain persons and to take away from others. Moloch becomes a “heavy judger of men!” Ginsberg describes such values to be abhorrent and destructive to society. The speaker describes Moloch as “the crossbone soulless jail- / house and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judg- / ment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned govern- / ments!” He criticizes the authoritative government which destroys individuality in favor of collectivism. The speaker suggests that the United States government, a body ultimately “of the people” and “by the people” does not collect the people’s hopes and ambitions as much as it collects their sorrows and inability to advance. He also describes Moloch as the soulless dominance of industry and corporate power. The poet also touches on themes of war, violence, and their impact on the human psyche. He mourns the loss of innocence and the devastation caused by conflict.

The speaker describes the struggles of the ‘best minds’ with government policies, society’s hostility to sex, specifically homosexuality, capitalism, and the political structure of the country. Capitalism, violence, and the unaccepting nature of American society broke their backs. The speaker claims that Industry and capitalism are not just symbols of American values. They are the deities of American culture. The attainment of wealth is a religious pursuit. It is a devotion of the American people. Moloch’s soul is “electricity and banks,” two of the cornerstones of industry and business. Ginsberg writes that Moloch’s “poverty is the specter of genius!” Capitalist society forces the innocent brilliance of the best minds to cease to exist.

Instead of succumbing to societal pressure and accepting defeat, the best minds chose to leave but that choice drove them to insanity.

Section 3 Lines 94-112

The third section begins with a direct address to Carl Solomon, a friend of Ginsberg. Ginsberg wants Solomon to know that he is “with you in Rockland!” This was the literal case for a time when Ginsberg was voluntarily admitted to the institution where Solomon lived, but it is meant here as more of a symbolic gesture. The speaker says that it is not just him who is standing with Solomon, but all of those who have been unfairly and unjustly destroyed and driven mad by the strictures and conformity of society and government concerned with nothing but its own survival and profit. It should be noted that neither Carl Solomon nor Ginsberg were ever admitted to the Rockland Psychiatric Institute. They met in the New York Psychiatric Institute.

The speaker describes how brilliant and creative Solomon was but admits that Solomon has been truly driven from a normal life. His “faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses”. He laughs at “invisible humor” and he cries to the nurses and doctors that he is “losing the game of / the actual pingpong of the abyss.” 

He then criticizes the unjust treatment of patients in the mental institutions of America. Referring to Carl Solomon, the speaker says that “the soul is innocent and / immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse.” The speaker describes insanity as actually genius and a system that seeks to lock up such genius is inhuman. To let Solomon’s “soul” die in an “armed madhouse” is to lose one of the world’s “best minds.” He criticizes the inhuman treatment of insane people in these hospitals and describes how they are forced to suffer shock therapy. The speaker says that it is torture and it did more to drive Solomon insane than it did to cure him.

The speaker mentions that Solomon also suffered hallucinations and paranoia. He tells Solomon that he’s with him in Rockland, where together they wake up electrified “out of the coma” by our “souls’ airplanes.” It’s in these lines that Ginsberg imagines a future in which the oppressed have the power to stand up against the society that has imposed this horrifying confinement upon them. In the future, in which the hospital becomes a war zone, the patients or the “skinny legions” are set free and can fight back. In the final lines, the speaker mentions that “I’m with you in Rockland” is meant as a symbolic cry. Ginsberg is actually in his “cottage in the Western / night” and Carl Solomon’s appearance in the poem has been a part of his dreams. Ginsberg leaves the reader to decide if the poem is a real description of events or if it is really just Ginsberg’s literary dream of a generation broken by a society that refuses to accept its deviance.


So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

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