In his 1956 poem "Howling" Allen Ginsberg portrays a vision of America that is both apocalyptic and somehow hopeful for the future. Ginsberg, one of the main figures of the Beat Writers counterculture of the 1940s and 1950s, presents America as a land in the grip of a capitalist conglomerate that suffocates the individual spiritually, artistically and economically. For Ginsberg, the spaces of America are filled with disillusionment, discontent, and dystopian ideals. There is, however, a sense, provided by Ginsberg, that this could change under the right conditions and thus bring America into a much kinder and more understanding state than it currently finds itself in. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The poem, divided into three sections and a footnote, mixes autobiography with philosophy and an illusion of prophetic insight. The first section, for example, serves as a form of record of the exploits of Ginsberg and his friends, mostly other Beat Writers, in New York during the early postwar years. These personal descriptions, often deeply sensitive and sometimes even confessing to criminality, are contrasted with the highly apocalyptic and prophetic second section in which Ginsberg attempts to explore the level of capitalist greed and oppression in America. The third section once again shifts towards the confessional and it is in this section that Ginsberg provides some form of release from the apocalyptic vision of America. This makes the spaces of America, although almost always far from professing a positive ideal, always full of meaning for Ginsberg. This is essential to reading the poem as one realizes that every action, person and space described has some form of importance. This provides the sense that Ginsberg can find philosophical value in the most mundane activities or places. A subway ride, for example, from Battery Park to the Bronx becomes an individual who has “chained himself to the subway for the never-ending journey from the Battery to the Holy Bronx.”[1] A subway ride becomes in Ginsberg's imagination a symbol of the “infinite” cycle of capitalist oppression, going so far as to compare the cycle to slavery, in much the same way as Henry David Thoreau in Walden. The Bronx, however, is described as "holy", alluding to the fascination that Ginsberg and the other Beats found in the culture of African Americans. Space, for Ginsberg, is therefore something that is full of meaning and meaning. One of the main reasons why the spaces of America are presented in 'Howl' as anything but utopian is that they have played a key role in the repression and annihilation of individuality. for Ginsberg's circle of friends and, as a whole, for the American people. The first two lines of 'Howl' are: “I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, hungry, hysterical, naked, shuffling at dawn through the nigger streets looking for an angry fix.” [Lines 1 -2] These “better minds” could be interpreted as other Beat writers, such as Jack Kerouac or William Burroughs, whom Ginsberg held in high esteem, or, quite simply, a laudatory view of the American population in general. By presenting the destruction of these "great minds" in the past tense, Ginsberg immediately delivers a tone of desperation and mourning, and the "starving hysterical naked" even induces pity. Allusions to black culture are once again made in “nigger streets,” referring to many of the Beats living in areas such as Harlem and the Bronx. It is these pitiful forward-thinking “great minds” that are the central focusof the first section of the poem, the word “who” [line 4], a reference to these “great minds,” is repeated at the beginning of every line from line 4 onwards in Section I. Keeping the focus on the “who” in Section I, the poem's largest and most expansive section, Ginsberg maintains a constant relationship between space and the individual, thus making each line meaningful to the people who inhabit American space. By keeping the focus of the poem on the individual and mixing prophecy with autobiography Ginsberg allows a much closer subjective reading of The American Space and its post-war dystopian ideals. Cases like witnessing "the horrors of Third Street iron dreams and stumbling into unemployment offices" [Line 44] and throwing "their watches off the roof to vote for Eternity out of Time, and the alarm clocks fell to them in test every day for the next decade.” [Ginsberg, line 54] This depiction of being a victim of the capitalist system is, as Ginsberg writes in his essay 'Notes Written on Finally Recording Howl', “a lament for the Lamb in America”.[1] This idea that America has sacrificed itself to the capitalist system is further emphasized by the segments of Section I in which references are made outside America's borders. Sexual freedom outside of repressive American society, for example, is mentioned in the line “who blew and was blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love.” [Line 37] This shows how, outside of America, the “best minds” are able to realize their potential as, says Ann Charters, “spokespeople for people rejected by the mainstream, be they drug addicts, homosexuals, emotionally dispossessed, or the mentally ill.”[2] It is America itself, Ginsberg suggests, and all the spaces enclosed under its flag that can be seen as modern dystopias. If Section I is, as Ginsberg describes it, the lamb, Part II is “the monster of mental consciousness that preys on the Lamb”.[1] In this section the focus shifts from the anaphoric use of “chi” to the Canaanite demigod “Moloch.” [Line 80] Moloch, in the Old Testament, is a demigod who is traditionally worshiped through the sacrifice of children through fire, but used in this section of the poem is a representation of the capitalist system or, rather, America as a whole . Ginsberg used this figure after taking the hallucinogenic peyote in San Francisco in 1954 and witnessing Moloch in the form of a hotel. Bill Morgan describes this moment, in his book The Typewriter is Holy, as “a horrible and terrifying vision, but one that gave Ginsberg new insight into man's greed.”[2] I believe it is in Section II that Ginsberg makes the starkest and harshest impression on the reader with this vision of America as the furthest from utopia. Ginsberg embodies Moloch as the twentieth-century American city in the line: “Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like infinite Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose chimneys and antennas crown the cities!” [Line 84]This image of an American city, which is suggested to be New York, presents Moloch, the capitalist system, as a kind of religious deity. Skyscrapers become signs of his glory and power as the American people live their lives behind “a thousand blind windows,” ignoring the cycle of which they are a part. The image of the city crowned with smokestacks and antennas shows the power that Moloch has over America, thus encompassing the roles of church, state and economy. This idea that capitalism has become a religion for the disillusioned people of America is carried forward in the phrase “They broke their backs raising Moloch to heaven!Sidewalks, trees, radios, tons! Raise to Heaven the city that exists and is everywhere around us!” [Line 89] The American people have followed the example of many ancient civilizations, promoting references to the biblical figure of Moloch, building large idols and temples, in the form of office buildings and skyscrapers, in the name of capitalism. By deluding themselves, Ginsberg believes, with the idea that they have created a celestial utopia, the people of the United States have become blind to the apathetic and superficial world in which they live. Blindness to the level of capitalist cultism, Ginsberg suggests, occurs despite the overt horror and suffering that the system imposes on the individual. The line that ends “Children screaming under the stairs! Boys sobbing in armies! Old people crying in parks!” [Line 80] shows the evolution of the male individual under the rule of Moloch. The “screams under the stairs” are an allusion to shelter from bombs, while both the “sobbing in the armies” and the “crying in the parks” could represent the psychological trauma induced by participation in the conflict. The blind worship of capitalism, Ginsberg believes, is directly linked to involvement in war. “Moloch in whom I sit alone! Moloch in whom I dream of Angels!” [Line 86] further highlights the desolation, isolation, and lack of authentic spirituality within a capitalist society. The relationship that this individual repression has with space is that it consolidates the purpose and effects of the capitalist cycle. If these are the people of America, Ginsberg asks, what is America like? In Section III Ginsberg once again uses anaphora, this time using the refrain "I'm with you in Rockland", an allusion to Ginsberg's time spent with Carl Solomon, to whom the poem is dedicated, in a psychiatric center, being mental illness is also a key motif of the poem. Through the poem directed at Solomon, with the first line of Section III reading “Carl Solomon! I am with you in Rockland,” [Line 94] the reader becomes one with Solomon as the same figure. Solomon, for Ginsberg, symbolizes the individual defeated by the overbearing hand of the American bourgeois capitalist ideal and therefore can also be seen as a representation of the ordinary American individual. It is in this section that Ginsberg provides the greatest sense of hope and salvation from his dystopian vision of America. Through the refrain “I'm with you in Rockland” Ginsberg presents a feeling of unity and empathy with the reader, Rockland comes to mean a more personal version of what Moloch previously represented. This sense of unity and solidarity is further emphasized by the references Ginsberg makes to Marxist ideology, a dangerous thing to do in America during the height of McCarthyism. “I am with you in Rockland where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot Jewish socialist revolution against national fascist Golgotha” [Line 107] suggests a sense of rebellion, using religious references to further emphasize these ideas. The juxtaposition between socialism and fascism is, for Ginsberg, a stalemate between his ideas of what good and evil are, while the contrast between Judaism and Christianity does not represent an idea of ​​religious superiority but rather simply a personal faith and belief , with Ginsberg and Solomon both coming from Jewish backgrounds. However, the reference to Judaism provides the meaning of the Exodus, underlining the idea of ​​liberation from slavery. The use of the word Golgotha ​​also contributes to the idea that capitalism has become a sort of religious deity for America. Ginsberg, providing parallels with the American norm, gives the reader hope that liberation from Moloch's grip will come soon, thus ending the cycle of capitalist repression and the state.