Kayla Samantha Dietz English Lit after 1890
ID: 17263212 March 10th, 2018
Time & the Importance it holds
Time is described as finite. This means that everything on Earth has an expiration date and that nothing on this planet is meant to last forever. Thus, one should spend all their time on Earth doing what they love and ceasing every opportunity possible. Time also brings about difficult changes and choices which should not be avoided or ignored. They should be embraced because when one fails to accept these challenging changes and choices, it brings about …show more content…
Using elegant symbolism, Ginsberg lets audiences know how uncomfortable he is with the way America has become. He is looking at America in the 20th century in the same manner that Walt Whitman looked at America in the 19th (Literary Cavalcade, par.2). This shows us, not only how much he has in common with Whitman, but how much he looks up to him. Like Whitman, Ginsberg is a closeted homosexual who writes on the same topics. It is evident why Ginsberg looked up to this man his entire life. That being said, “A Super Market in California” shows just how significant Whitman was in Ginsberg’s life. Whitman is mentioned several times throughout the poem; strolling around the supermarket with Ginsberg for its entirety. This leads us to believe that Whitman is nothing but a mere hallucination; a projection of Ginsberg’s deep inner thoughts on his sexual identity, anger with modern America, and his contemplation on how the rest of his life will …show more content…
He then outwardly states he sees Garcia Lorca (also a closet gay) by the watermelons, which I find to be a euphemism for a woman’s breasts. The fact that Ginsberg doesn’t understand what he’s doing there correlates to his own questioning of whether he should do the same and hide the truth. Then when Walt Whitman is introduced, a plethora of sexual innuendos can be found. Whitman is depicted as a man being himself (a gay man) which prompts Ginsberg to see him as an angelic creature of truth. To contradict, the next section of the poem snaps him back to reality; Whitman dying a closeted gay, the fact he hasn’t decided which path to take for himself, and his hatred for the current period he is living in. He mentions a store detective chasing him when the truth is… it is just his own paranoia that people will learn the truth before he makes his own decision. “Where are we going Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?” (Ginsberg, pg.2585, stanza.8). Whitman’s beard is a double symbol term (the term ‘beard’ has come to describe a fake companion used to hide one’s true sexual identity); does his beard point to the revealing of the truth or is it just a beard masking Ginsberg’s truth. The cashier represents a crossroads; once
ID: 17263212 March 10th, 2018
Time & the Importance it holds
Time is described as finite. This means that everything on Earth has an expiration date and that nothing on this planet is meant to last forever. Thus, one should spend all their time on Earth doing what they love and ceasing every opportunity possible. Time also brings about difficult changes and choices which should not be avoided or ignored. They should be embraced because when one fails to accept these challenging changes and choices, it brings about …show more content…
Using elegant symbolism, Ginsberg lets audiences know how uncomfortable he is with the way America has become. He is looking at America in the 20th century in the same manner that Walt Whitman looked at America in the 19th (Literary Cavalcade, par.2). This shows us, not only how much he has in common with Whitman, but how much he looks up to him. Like Whitman, Ginsberg is a closeted homosexual who writes on the same topics. It is evident why Ginsberg looked up to this man his entire life. That being said, “A Super Market in California” shows just how significant Whitman was in Ginsberg’s life. Whitman is mentioned several times throughout the poem; strolling around the supermarket with Ginsberg for its entirety. This leads us to believe that Whitman is nothing but a mere hallucination; a projection of Ginsberg’s deep inner thoughts on his sexual identity, anger with modern America, and his contemplation on how the rest of his life will …show more content…
He then outwardly states he sees Garcia Lorca (also a closet gay) by the watermelons, which I find to be a euphemism for a woman’s breasts. The fact that Ginsberg doesn’t understand what he’s doing there correlates to his own questioning of whether he should do the same and hide the truth. Then when Walt Whitman is introduced, a plethora of sexual innuendos can be found. Whitman is depicted as a man being himself (a gay man) which prompts Ginsberg to see him as an angelic creature of truth. To contradict, the next section of the poem snaps him back to reality; Whitman dying a closeted gay, the fact he hasn’t decided which path to take for himself, and his hatred for the current period he is living in. He mentions a store detective chasing him when the truth is… it is just his own paranoia that people will learn the truth before he makes his own decision. “Where are we going Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?” (Ginsberg, pg.2585, stanza.8). Whitman’s beard is a double symbol term (the term ‘beard’ has come to describe a fake companion used to hide one’s true sexual identity); does his beard point to the revealing of the truth or is it just a beard masking Ginsberg’s truth. The cashier represents a crossroads; once