At face value this is clearly because the garbage truck is taller than the car, but is there an ironic message too? You might have expected the rich couple to 'look down on' the dustmen, not the other way round. He often writes about politics and social issues Lawrence Ferlinghetti: The garbagemen are 'looking down' (line 7) into the Mercedes.
One of the main poets of the Beat movement. Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in 1919 in New York. The poet compares the two pairs in detail, then seems to ask - at the end of the poem - whether America really is a democracy. The garbagemen's day ends where the young couple's begins. There are two scavengers, garbagemen 'on their way home' after their round, and two beautiful people, an elegant couple 'on the way to his architect's office'. Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes Describes four people held together for a moment at a red traffic light. Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes So, right from the start, we feel the garbagemen are at a disadvantage. However, Beautiful People is a compliment. Scavengers is a derogatory term for the garbagemen because it suggests that they live off the rubbish of others - a scavenger beetle lives off rotting flesh. The title shows us straight away that the poem will be about the contrasts between two pairs of people. grungy from their route on the way homeThe older of the two with grey iron hair and hunched back looking down like some gargoyle QuasimodoAnd the younger of the two also with sunglasses & long hair about the same age as the Mercedes driverĪnd both scavengers gazing down as from a great distance at the cool couple as if they were watching some odorless TV ad in which everything is always possibleĪnd the very red light for an instant holding all four close together as if anything at all were possible between them across that small gulf in the high seas of this democracy The man in a hip three-piece linen suit with shoulder-length blond hair & sunglassesThe young blond woman so casually coifed with a short skirt and colored stockings on the way to his architect's officeĪnd the two scavengers up since four a.m.
downtown San Francisco a bright yellow garbage truck with two garbagemen in red plastic blazers standing on the back stoop one on each side hanging on and looking down into an elegant open Mercedes with an elegant couple in it Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes At the stoplight waiting for the light nine a.m.
0 kommentar(er)
