An Analysis Of Broadway Melody By Frederick Seidel

“Broadway Melody” by Frederick Seidel is somewhat humorous but realistic impression of elderly people. I can honestly say that I laughed after reading this as well as slightly being moved by the beauty of it towards the end. I find it a unique poem, because of the subject matter and context, as well as the cruelty and the offensiveness of the tone with the speaker. In addition, In my interpretation of the poem the main focal point revolves around the idea of ageism in which everyone in this world will face some day, and how some people may view ageism as a sorrowful way to spend the remainder of their lives, by only enjoying life as much as your physical body allows you. Frederick focuses on the ugliness of age and the decrepitly that comes …show more content…
A woman my age naked is a nightmare.” This is how the poem opens up. Anyone reading this poem initially reads a feeling of disgust of an older man, maybe he even has that same type of hatred for himself when looking in the mirror. I feel for the speaker to be Frederick Seidel himself. “It doesn’t matter. One doesn’t care. One doesn’t say it out loud because it’s rare.” Through out this poem we see that there is a slow transition from the idea of a “living death” to an idea of rare beauty that many people do not get to experience for them. The first stanza is to mainly target the idea of decrepity and the ugliness of old …show more content…
Firstly, the word choice he uses throughout the poem to describe his feelings, secondly I see some truth in this in how a lot of people may view the idea of ageism. Although it may be too harsh of a perspective, everyone does have a natural fear of being in a state of imprisonment within his or her own self. Through out the poem there is a constant negative tone present, whether its fear, hate, and sadness. There is a rhythm present at the end of every line, which consist of the lamb type of meter that consists of one unstressed and one stressed syllable, which helps the poem have more fluidity in the words. The context and symbolism does generally reflect ageism as stated above. What I later realized about this poem and the speaker is that I truly feel the speaker is lonely in life. Maybe he was married once then divorced, or maybe his significant other passed on. However, given the tone of the speaker I think he has been living the bachelor life for most of his life, and now he is starting to realize his natural fate and wishes he had someone to enjoy the remainder of his time with, as the old couple he is watching through out the