Specimen Days Analysis

Michael Cunningham’s effective use of language and style reflect and further the opinions he voices within “Specimen Days”. He shares three interrelated stories set in New York City in the past, present and imagined future. It includes three creative takes on Walt Whitman and the stories are bound together by recurring devices. This approach is effective because the audience gets three different takes on Whitman, during three different times, with similar occurrences that bring them all together for a better understanding. The first story, “In the Machine”, took place during a time where industrialism was on the rise. This story highlights the problems that were associated with the Industrial Revolutions and also the toll it took on society. Simon, a son to an immigrant family, ends up getting crushed by a machine at work. His younger brother Lucas takes his place at work, he is a “misshapen boy with… a habit of speaking in fits.” (5). The fits Lucas undergoes are verses from Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”, which it appears he has memorized, and from …show more content…
Cunningham wants his audience to see and realize how we are living now and how times have changed since within the first story. He discusses the “gaudy party wear meant to appeal to buyers so unhappy they were ready to blow a tenth of their paychecks on a sequined synthetic sweater or a pair of fake alligator pumps just to have something to show for it all” (112). Today, we see people indulging in any materialistic item they can get their hands on and for what? This concept Cunningham presents reminded me of Thoreau because he too reasserts the importance on the effect of materialism on a person’s life. Ownership along with the use of technology take over men’s lives before they even can consider for themselves how they might want to live. He encourages us to be happy with what we already have and Cunningham is trying to get the same point