Richard Cory Research Paper

Mama, always said, “fake it till you make it”, meaning sometimes it’s best to check the baggage at the door and put on a smile. This tried and true convention was created by American Society. Outsiders view America as a picturesque dream––America the great, America the brave, and America home of the wealthy. These mores that exemplify the good and condemn the bad produce citizens that feel inadequate and out of place. Early 20th-century American poetry encompassed these themes. Authors wrote of characters who were fed up and misunderstood. Characters that didn’t feel adequate, yet they didn’t publicize their frustrations; instead, the characters chose to suffer internally. Ultimately, leading many of them to suicide, substance abuse, and depression. Specifically, the poem Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson. …show more content…
Corey was viewed as a king by the townspeople and put up on a pedestal. The townspeople envied him, Cory lived what they thought to be the ideal life––he ate meat while they ate bread, he dressed to impress while they dressed in hand-me-downs, and he was educated while they were not. The townspeople all wished to be in Richard Cory’s shoes because they saw what was on the outside. Although, Cory longed for friendship and human connections; he greeted the townspeople with, “good morning” while downtown, but they paid him no mind because he was a “king”. One night Richard Cory’s internal loneliness got the best of him and he committed suicide. Robinson wanted to depict an envious town and a man they admired but in the last line of the poem he showed that Cory was not, in fact, perfect