Ginsberg Howl

Liang Sin Go Moloch and what it means to Allen Ginsberg The poem “Howl” written by Allen Ginsberg, is one of his many piece in expressing his anger and frustration towards how the creativity and freedom of the people from his time were immensely destroyed by the establishment of 1950s America. The poet stated that the verses are written in a form that lines were broken up based on where he would need to take a breath and should be read quickly to resemble a rant or a diatribe. One significant form of speech in his poem is that he expresses a lot of his concerns and ideas by utilizing personification. The idealized creature that Ginsberg used in part II known as “Moloch” is a creative and fitting term to personify the demolition and chaos

Is his poem’s most renowned line “I saw the best mind of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix” (1), the best minds are the people within Ginsberg’s orbit at the time and he explained with an overemotional tone stating that they were destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, in which he further relates it to Moloch in part II. Part II focuses mainly on the destruction of the American society in which Ginsberg is associating all these destruction with the Canaanite God, Moloch. He makes quite an attention by calling Moloch in almost the start of every line, awarding the importance of this character in his poem to his

He believes that the vision of the best minds was destroyed by capitalism. In one of his verses he stated “Visions! Omens! Hallucinations! Miracles! Ecstasies! Gone down the American river!” (6), he is suggesting that all these were destroyed by Moloch and were travelling down the river into another country or region that will find these values useful. This is bad according to him because these values are the good things that holds the country together and as of that time, they were all treated like crap and nonsense to the capitalist, and all they care about at that time was profit and more profits. Ginsberg’s personification of Moloch carries several different meanings, but they all represents morality that are evil and sinful. Hence, Moloch plays multiple roles in destroying the society and Ginsberg is trying to notify the people of the wrongs that are happening around them in order for everyone to stand up together against Moloch to make a change. The base motivation for the poem is to encourage the best minds to stand up for themselves and hopefully one day can eliminate the existence or Moloch so that visions and creativity can be regained by the