Auto Wreck Poem Analysis

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“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”- Oscar Wilde. Like the public, the speaker in Karl Shapiro’s poem, “Auto Wreck,” has a flawed sense of curiosity.
The way in which the speaker depicts the ambulance and cops is a testimony to his emotions and thoughts while witnessing the aftermath of the accident. The speaker portrays the ambulance as an angel using words like “floating down” and “hush,” since “floating down” could be interpreted as an angel descending from heaven and “hush” gives off a quiet, calming tone that is reminiscent of an angel. This insinuates that there is at least one casualty, since the ambulance is an angel taking the dead away. The ambulance symbolizing an angel could also be inferred by the speaker trying to find a reason for the car crash and looking to God for an answer. The red light of the ambulance is compared to an “artery,” perhaps referring to the blood lost by the victim of the crash. The police are …show more content…

The lines “Our throats were tight as tourniquets,” and “Our feet were bound with splints,” describes the bystanders initial inability to speak and move due to the shock caused by the car crash. After they overcame the shock they were “gauche” and gossiped, looking for a “banal resolution.” The bystanders looking for a simple ending implies that they really don’t care about the crash itself. In comparison to the cops the bystanders are “deranged,” showing how something like a car crash can influence people in different ways than others. The speaker uses the words “our richest horror” to describe humanities desire to satisfy curiosity and bask in the glow of their revelations. “Richest horror” is an ambivalence; it gives a condescending tone, as no “horror” can truly lead way to “[riches]”. All of this surmises that the speaker finds curiosity to have the potential to be a negative aspect of human

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