Beat Lamentations: Social Rebuke in Ginsberg’ “Howl”

Beat Lamentations: Social Rebuke in Ginsberg’ “Howl”

            As is the case with many Beat Generation writing, the spontaneous forms and refusals of conventional meters of beat poets can lead many to deem their work disjointed, morally deficient, or even obscene. However, a close analysis of beat poetry reveals many themes common to this influential movement.In the iconic Beat Generation poem “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg, the speaker constructs a social commentary that directly challenges the sanity of the postwar society.

            The speaker uses the juxtaposition of Carl Solomon against American society in order construct the argument that Carl is really sane and society is not. Allen Ginsberg met Carl Solomon whom the poem is dedicated to while serving an eight-month sentence at Columbia Presbyterian Psychiatric Hospital (Charters). The speaker in “Howl” is an advocate for Carl, a voice for him when he is defenseless against the systemic machinations of the psychiatric industry. Carl is the unique method of contrasting what is wrong with a society that sees itself as normal and has unjustly incarcerated a misunderstood soul. Carl may have been the one “...who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy " (Ginsberg, Section 1, Line 66). However, the speaker only mentions these exploits to make the case that these actions pale in comparison to the greater madness of a conformist society.

            The first line of the poem sets the tone and explains the overall theme. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…” (1:1). The speaker gives voice to a whole generation that feels that the conservative conformist culture is having a devastating effect upon them. The “best minds” include those artists who, like Carl, Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs have been disenfranchised and marginalized by a systemic type of collective madness.

            The speaker uses a great number of symbolic references to describe the demands of society upon the individual. The nine-to-five worker finds themselves enslaved, “dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix” and “chained themselves to subways” (1:2, 1:14). They wake in the morning and reluctantly toil for sustenance. They are addicted to the things that a paycheck can buy. To be able to buy more they must seek out higher education. They “passed through universities with radiant cool eyes” where their individual fire or passions were “cooled” by conformity (1:9).

            Section 2 uses the repetition of the term “Moloch” as a metaphorical association of the conformed worker/consumer with the demands of a society which they must sacrifice themselves to. Moloch was an ancient Canaanite deity described in the Bible as that to which they sacrificed their children to (“Moloch”). The speaker is promoting a condemnation of a society (Moloch) that requires the spiritual sacrifice of this generation. They have sent them after “unobtainable dollars!” and through inscription and perpetual warfare caused “Boys sobbing in armies!” (2:2). Blood is the life-force of a being. And Moloch’s (society) is “running money!” (2:5). Moloch is the system of industrialized modernity where factories, electricity, banks, and skyscrapers are the fruit of the sacrifice. It is a scornful fruit according to the speaker’s depictions, but a result thereof nonetheless.

            Ultimately, “Howl” is a painful moan, a lamentation for the lost individuality that makes numbers out of men, consumers out of an artist, and madmen out of geniuses. Yet there is some glimmer of hope to be drawn from the work. William Carlos Williams wrote in the preface to “Howl”, “It is a howl of defeat. Everything in this life is defeated but a man, if he be a man, is not defeated” (Williams).

Works Cited

Charters, Anne. "Allen Ginsberg's Life." Allen Ginsberg's Life. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2016.   <http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/ginsberg/life.htm>.

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl. Boulder, CO: Museum of American Poetics Publications, 2006. Print.

"Moloch". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

            Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 26 Sep. 2016

            <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Moloch-ancient-god>.

Williams, William. Preface to Howl and Other Poems: Pocket Poets Number 4. No. 4. City             Lights Books, 1956.