Who Are We to Judge?
Sometimes it is easy to form an opinion about someone based on what you see from the outside, but by no means is this an effective way of assessing the way someone is inside. Just like you cannot judge a book a book by its cover, you cannot judge a person without getting to know them. Both Edwin Robinson's, Richard Cory, and Wystan Auden's, The Unknown Citizen try to do this. Who is to say that their analysis of the two characters is correct? The two poems are based only on what is observed, not what is known.
Richard Cory is structured in a very consistent, easy to read manner, but is as harsh and radical as the form is classical and neat. The poem is an extended description of a man, a very rich, successful man, named Richard Cory. The narrator of the poem spends a good part of the poem, the first three stanzas, doing nothing but genuinely praising this man. In the first stanza, Richard Cory is portrayed as the envy of all those around him, the object of everyone's attention. He refers to Cory as a "gentleman from sole to crown", and even uses language that sounds suited to describe royalty when he calls Cory "Clean favored, and imperially slim."
The second and third stanzas go on in much the same way. In the second stanza, the narrator describes Cory's social standing. In the narrator's eye's, Cory continues to be the perfect, polite gentleman, as he was "always human when he talked.". Cory was certainly not the picture of a snobbish or rude man. Cory was also a very popular fellow, as he "fluttered pulses" with a simple "Good-morning", Cory was an impressive social figure indeed.
However, the poem takes a sudden, dark twist in the last stanza. Robinson does this by first revealing a little...
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... newspaper daily, has the correct number of children, fights for peace and supports the war. In spite of all these facts, the subject remains "unknown". We do not see any strong traits in this unknown citizen. He is merely like any other ordinary man we can find around us. We cannot see how special he appears or anything that could distinguish him from others. Although we know all of the facts, we might not be able to recognize him, but somehow the speaker is able to tell us who this person is.
Just as the end of Richard Cory showed us that things are not always as they seem, how is anyone able to judge what type of person the Unknown Citizen was. Nobody can, the description is based on the statistics that were gathered, not the person himself. What someone can see on the outside is not the same as what is within, the part of the person that makes them unique.
Robinson, Edward Arlington. "Richard Cory." The Pocket Book of Modern Verse. New York: Washington Square Press, 1954. 153.
Throughout the poem Crichton Smith successfully creates a haunting portrayal of his guilt-laden grief over his mother's final years and the role he played in her neglect. This neglect is evident in the vivid image of his mother's home combined with her frailty. Crichton Smith adds to this his own role in failing to rescue her and subsequently emphasises the extent to which he is plagued by regret.
Welch opens the story with this line to show a relationship between the narrator's feelings of worthlessness and the worthlessness of his environment. In addition, the author melodically begins the novel in a somber manner ? so the reader may immediately adjust to the tone encompassing the story.
The stranger remarks as to how he has had numerous problems at sea, and had afterwards been held captive by some Indians. He thinks it is wrong that the father of the child has not been named or come forward.
Structure: There are 4 stanzas, each serves to reveal a different piece of information (1st stanza: town’s consensus about Richard Cory, 2nd stanza: personality, 3rd stanza: social status, 4th status: the abrupt, unforeseen ending of his life).
Cory has grown to become his own man throughout the play, we see this first when he get a job at a&p but continues to play football without fathers permission. Him feeling the non approval of his father when he asks him if he likes him or not show where he's at in life at that point of the play. Cory physical argument with Troy show his growth as a person and men standing on his own, not needing the approval of his father. Cory has show us reader that he is the character that has developed the most in the
Frost's use of detailed description in this poem is quite interesting. It helps provide the reader with a better visual image of the poem. He doesn’t go too far though as to tell the reader exactly what’s going on, he leaves the poem open to interpretation so that the reader can decide for himself what is truly going on between the neighbors. On one hand, Frost tells us specifically what is going on in the poem, the two neighbors meet together at the beg...
The irony in the poem portrays the theme that looks can be very deceiving. Richard Cory was the perfect man, or so it seemed. No one saw what was going on underneath his perfect disguise. In the beginning of the poem we learn that Richard Cory is perfect and rich. Through his suicide, we learn that even Cory, a perfect man, was not as content as he seemed to others. The common people had a distorted view of Cory. They thought Cory was happy because he was wealthy and came across as perfect when in reality, he had faults and suffered. His appearance was deceiving as he hid his suffering with a mask- his looks, his riches, and the way he kept himself. Since he appeared to be of a higher class and richer than the common people, it would seem as though he would have no problems. Arlington emphasized how Corey had everything with his use of repetitiveness using “And” at the beginning of each line describing Cory’s characteristics. The common people judged Richard Cory based on what they saw, assuming he had the perfect life with everything he had, rather than who he was as a person. In “Cory”, there is no mention of Cory’s life on a personal level. The moral of this is not to judge a person by their looks, but rather who they really are because who they really are can be
Both "Richard Cory" poems by Paul Simon and Edwin Robinson reflect the idea of the American Dream, but both in distinct ways. The two poems are different in the ways that societal views have changed through time based on wealth. The image society portrays the American Dream is depicted in the poems by the conversion from royalty to fame. This change of the American Dream is shown through many symbols, but wealth best illustrates how times have changed from the Cory of Robinson's poem, to that of the poem by Paul Simon.
In Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poems, “Richard Cory” and “Miniver Cheevy” the main characters are portrayed as outcasts. Both are shunned from society neither having any real friends. Though these characters have some similarities, the way in which Robinson portrays them is very different. Richard Cory is admired by his peers, where as, Miniver Cheevy is opposite; people look down on him. One man appearing to have everything takes his own life, while the other appearing to have nothing accepts his misery.
Just before the poem begins, an epigraph stating “To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument is Erected by the State” is clearly written, thus setting the stage for the entire situation surrounding the unknown citizen. The first portion of the epigraph, mentions a series of letters of numbers, which identifies the unknown citizen by reducing him down to a number. While it is unclear whether or not the numbers and letters actually reveal a part of the citizen’s lif...
As a criticism to the western society’s view on a person’s life, “The Unknown Citizen” presents a normal and unremarkable person as an “unknown citizen” who has been honored with a poetic monument by the government about how little trouble he caused for anyone but served his duty to his nation. The speaker opens the this elegy style poem with an epigraph on a memorial to this unknown man who was simply known as “JS/07 M 378” The speaker criticizes the government’s determination to define the meaning of a citizen’s life in just a few facts collected by technology lists as the speaker goes through the reasons that this citizen is worthy of the title: the unknown citizen. This knowledge is made possible by the “Bureau of Statistics” use of modern
We are able to gather the image of an extremely polished male who is not only a man but a gentleman. Richard is wealthy beyond measure and the people clearly lust for his riches. The metaphor throughout the poem which compares Richard to wealth teaches a strong lesson to the townspeople. The author closes this poem with the lines “And Richard Cory, one calm summer night / went home and put a bullet through his head. (15-16)” If we once again compare Richard to wealth, this phrase indicates that although the townspeople believe they will gain happiness from obtaining wealth, they may actually find that their calm is destroyed by wealth. Without the use of imagery and metaphor acting together throughout this piece of literature, it is my opinion that the reader may not have gained a clear picture of Richard Cory and his relationship of superiority with the people of the
In the last line of the second stanza, the subject enters dramatically, accompanied by an abrupt change in the rhythm of the poem:
The tone and emotion of the poem changes as the speaker goes on. The first stanza of the poem convey...