The Coldest Winter Poem Analysis

Canadian poet, Raymond Souster, explores the thematic implications of the individual’s urban experience, representing the Canadian city center as a place of isolating corruption that maps an unchanging Toronto. Drawing on the modernist impulse to criticize the industrialization of society, Souster moves away from the Canadian tradition of writing naturalistic visions into the sphere of the cityscape. In his poems, “Robinson Street”, and “The Coldest Winter”, Souster uses images of isolated anguish set against the backdrop of an urban setting in order to demonstrate the depressing solitude that emerges within industrialized society. The pattern of images suggests that the city is representative of a place in which individuals are engulfed by …show more content…
The city is consistently represented as cold and lifeless despite the busy population. “Robinson Street” reinforces the sensation of “dullness” that overpowers those who reside within the Toronto borders (Souster, 4). The texts clarify a sense of place for the reader to reach into as a means of retrieving meaning from the geographic situation of the poems. This sensation allows for an urban backdrop to envelop the mood of the text. In doing so, Souster represents the monotonous composition of the urban center. As a result, the reader comprehends the events that are represented within each poem within the contexts of city …show more content…
Although they are standing “on the platforms” waiting in a “crowd” for the train the individuals are working toward the purpose of travel (Souster, “The Coldest Winter” 7). And yet, almost no one is drawn out from the group which causes it to become a seemingly collective mass of people. All shown with the same purpose of taking the subway train in the morning. When the woman commits suicide, the entire crowd emits the identical reaction of standing “completely frozen / for almost a second” (Souster, “The Coldest Winter” 8-9). This shows that the population is one in which all persons have been assimilated until they are a mass movement that allows for the continued functionality of urban society. There is the implication that living in the industrialized city environment removes the individuality of the population. With heavily scheduled lives, people turn into mechanized beings that function based on what they are told they are meant to do. The only person who is represented as being otherwise is the “woman” who takes her “last leap in front” of the oncoming “subway train” (Souster, “The Coldest Winter” 4-6). It is significant that she is identified only by her gender because it is broad factor of classification that could apply to a number of people but it is the only defining device used within the text. In other words, the gender of the individual