If you read the poem from a couple weeks back, you may already know the poem For The Union Dead by Robert Lowell, for you slackers out there, here is a link:
http://robertlowellandco.blogspot.com/2009/05/for-union-dead.html
Once you've read that, come back, and read the most kick-a*s analytical essay ever written:
The poem, For The Union Dead, begins in a scene from Lowell’s more idyllic youth, with his nose pressed against the glass of the South Boston Aquarium, his hand itching to pop the bubbles, rising from the noses of the ‘cowed, compliant fish’.
In this way, we are given an idea of what Boston was like during his youth, a friendlier, fresh place to live. Lowell brings the reader back to the present with a jolt. The idyllic childhood image is juxtaposed against the new Boston. “My hand draws back. I often sigh still for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom of the fish and reptile.” In this quote Lowell muses about the closing, and subsequent degeneration of the Aquarium, from his childhood, where it was a friendly place to go, when in his mature years it has been forgotten in favour of urbanisation. The Aquarium is also a symbol of change all over the world, after the Second World War the world was in upheaval and global change was taking place, in the same way that the Aquarium is changing and falling apart. The new Boston is urban, galvanized with scaffolding holding up a building against the excavations for a car park going on underneath it, but with only a plank of wood holding up the statue dedicated to Colonel Shaw, one of the great heroes of the American Civil War.
Shaw led his infantry against the Confederacy, and gave his life fighting for what he thought was right, an end to slavery, and equality for Black Americans. Even though he made the ultimate sacrifice, his memorial isn’t valued very highly anymore and the progress of Society and the urbanisation of Boston must go ahead unabated “The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere, giant finned cars nose forward like fish; a savage servility slides by on grease.” This quote is so emotive because of the almost harsh language it uses, ‘savage servility’ and ‘Aquarium is gone’. In the same way even though war was highly glorified at the time, it has been commercialised, and become an almost shameful topic.
“On Boylston Street, a commercial photograph shows Hiroshima boiling over a Mosler Safe, the "Rock of Ages" that survived the blast.” This quote show the shameless, greedy way in which large companies have exploited the horrible end to the war, and used it to sell their product to people. And, despite Colonel Shaw’s best efforts even racism prevails: “When I crouch to my television set, the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.” Lowell refers to the end of educational segregation in the South, when a number of African American students fought to enter schools with their white peers. I believe this quote is so effective because of the way it invokes emotions for the “Negro” children who are still experiencing repression despite what their fore-fathers and Colonel Shaw gave their life for.
Lowell ensnares the reader in his nostalgic vision of the past and suddenly returns them to a brutal present. In this poem, Lowell makes a statement about his views on urbanisation, racism and commercialisation. What makes this poem so strikingly is the effective use of emotive language and use of emotions that this poem brings out in the reader; this is a great demonstration of Lowell’s ability to use such emotions in this way.
I know, awesome, right?
I bet you're wondering how I wrote this masterpiece, and I have one snippet of advice for you, read over what my fellow "author" has written, it is often a great help.
Thanks for reading,
Sam.