Where “C33” is exemplary as one of Crane’s earliest works, “The Broken Tower” is notable in that it is the last work he wrote before his suicide, published posthumously. It offers a different solution to the same conflict, and reads like a suicide note instead of a eulogy.
The bell-rope that gathers God at dawn
Dispatches me as though I dropped down the knell
Of a spent day - to wander the cathedral lawn
From pit to crucifix, feet chill on steps from hell (1.1-4).
Crane is being sent out into the world from a Cathedral lawn, which is symbolic of his Christian roots. Starting when he was nine years old, Crane lived with his grandmother, Elizabeth, a fervent Christian Scientist. As a boy, Crane also proclaimed himself to be a Scientist, even …show more content…
He pleads with them to hear a chorus of bells sung by a “corps of shadows in the tower” (2.1-2). The figures are said to have “shoulders [that] sway,” or perhaps, as young Crane may have written it, “wavering shoulders” (2.2)(2.2). This “corps” consists of those queer readers from “C33,” trapped away in the tower on high (2.1). Rather incidentally, these characters are referenced in the same line and stanza in each of their respective poems. “Their tongues engrave membrane through marrow, my long-scattered score / Of broken intervals...And I, their sexton slave” (3.3-4)! The shadows sing a song that cuts Crane down to his bones, but this song isn’t a foreign hymn to him. In fact, this chorus which is interwoven so deeply within him is none other than his own, “long-scattered” in that he has suppressed and hoped to lose this sense of himself for a significant amount of time. Being reminded of his former self, the young queer boy full of ambition toward his career and a lust for love and life, is excruciating for the emotionally damaged man in a creative draught and a relationship with a woman. “And I, their sexton slave!” Cranes calls out in a resounding and woeful proclamation (3.4). “Sexton” refers to a person responsible for looking after a church and its grounds, as well as ringing the bells and digging graves. While Crane rings the bells that break down their tower, he is slave …show more content…
The balance changes, and in a moment the tower collapses to the ground: “Banked voices slain! (4.2)” The giant bells fall to the ground with the thunder of drums, and the mass of voices is left “prostrate on the plain” (4.4). With his past self gone at last, he “[enters] the broken world” to search for the fleeting and seemingly unattainable love and fulfillment in a heterosexual relationship. He pours his soul into his attempt to fit this mould, “But it was cognate, scored of that tribunal monarch of the air” (6.1-2). Though Crane hopes to find redemption here, his attempts are simply authored by the judgement of God; he is no longer the author of his own identity. “In wounds pledged to hope, cleft to despair? (6.4)” God’s promise to fulfill Crane and aid him in his quest for self-actualization wounds him in the process; the “crystal Word” makes it clear that there is no place for Crane in this world and he is left with nothing (6.3). Crane was willing to destroy the tower and wound a part of himself in order to be free in Christ, but he finds no satisfaction in the world that awaits him afterwards. Upon this loss, all “encroachments of [his] blood left [him] / No answer” (7.1-2). A pulse awakens him: “My veins recall and add, revived and sure / the angelus of wars my chest evokes: what I hold healed, original now, and pure…” (8.2-4). Crane’s sexual identity, which he has long resented, is solidified within him when he realises the lack of meaning or hope
The bell-rope that gathers God at dawn
Dispatches me as though I dropped down the knell
Of a spent day - to wander the cathedral lawn
From pit to crucifix, feet chill on steps from hell (1.1-4).
Crane is being sent out into the world from a Cathedral lawn, which is symbolic of his Christian roots. Starting when he was nine years old, Crane lived with his grandmother, Elizabeth, a fervent Christian Scientist. As a boy, Crane also proclaimed himself to be a Scientist, even …show more content…
He pleads with them to hear a chorus of bells sung by a “corps of shadows in the tower” (2.1-2). The figures are said to have “shoulders [that] sway,” or perhaps, as young Crane may have written it, “wavering shoulders” (2.2)(2.2). This “corps” consists of those queer readers from “C33,” trapped away in the tower on high (2.1). Rather incidentally, these characters are referenced in the same line and stanza in each of their respective poems. “Their tongues engrave membrane through marrow, my long-scattered score / Of broken intervals...And I, their sexton slave” (3.3-4)! The shadows sing a song that cuts Crane down to his bones, but this song isn’t a foreign hymn to him. In fact, this chorus which is interwoven so deeply within him is none other than his own, “long-scattered” in that he has suppressed and hoped to lose this sense of himself for a significant amount of time. Being reminded of his former self, the young queer boy full of ambition toward his career and a lust for love and life, is excruciating for the emotionally damaged man in a creative draught and a relationship with a woman. “And I, their sexton slave!” Cranes calls out in a resounding and woeful proclamation (3.4). “Sexton” refers to a person responsible for looking after a church and its grounds, as well as ringing the bells and digging graves. While Crane rings the bells that break down their tower, he is slave …show more content…
The balance changes, and in a moment the tower collapses to the ground: “Banked voices slain! (4.2)” The giant bells fall to the ground with the thunder of drums, and the mass of voices is left “prostrate on the plain” (4.4). With his past self gone at last, he “[enters] the broken world” to search for the fleeting and seemingly unattainable love and fulfillment in a heterosexual relationship. He pours his soul into his attempt to fit this mould, “But it was cognate, scored of that tribunal monarch of the air” (6.1-2). Though Crane hopes to find redemption here, his attempts are simply authored by the judgement of God; he is no longer the author of his own identity. “In wounds pledged to hope, cleft to despair? (6.4)” God’s promise to fulfill Crane and aid him in his quest for self-actualization wounds him in the process; the “crystal Word” makes it clear that there is no place for Crane in this world and he is left with nothing (6.3). Crane was willing to destroy the tower and wound a part of himself in order to be free in Christ, but he finds no satisfaction in the world that awaits him afterwards. Upon this loss, all “encroachments of [his] blood left [him] / No answer” (7.1-2). A pulse awakens him: “My veins recall and add, revived and sure / the angelus of wars my chest evokes: what I hold healed, original now, and pure…” (8.2-4). Crane’s sexual identity, which he has long resented, is solidified within him when he realises the lack of meaning or hope