Auto Wreck Poem Analysis

“Auto Wreck” reveals what its poet considers to be the terrible secret of modern life: the creeping indifference toward technological determinism, the simple violence of machine against human being in which everyone participates by failing to be troubled or moved by such disasters as automobile wrecks. The tone of the poem is likely to be melodious which an imagism verse is. It is a short, lyrical narrative poem. The poem is described in first person narrative. The poet in short is trying to convey that life is not eternal so no one knows when the end time is going to arrive. So one must have the fear in mind . The poem comprises of 259 words described in 39 lines . He conveys the unpredictability and grimness of death while probing for a deeper meaning of it within himself as well. Shapiro's usage of imagery in conjunction with figurative language is a key element in …show more content…
The second and third stanzas explore the emotions felt after the car crash from the perspective of a witness. A major theme from “Auto Wreck” is death. The poet is exploring the random and illogical nature of mortality by contrasting the car crash with other forms of death (war, suicide, disaster, cancer) that are more understandable. Karl Shapiro focuses attention on the unadorned, literalist description of a common event or experience. In the first stanza, which comprises the first fourteen lines, the reader is situated, as it were, in front of an ambulance that is speeding toward the scene of an automobile accident; the reader is kept informed by an omniscient voice, which scrupulously provides both sensual and metaphorical detail that brings the reader uncomfortably close to both the horrifying event and his or her own matter-of-fact response to its