Chicago by Carl Sandburg poem summary, American Literature II, 3rd Year 5th Semester, B.A English Literature

 BA English Literature

[3rd Year, 5th Semester]

American Literature – II 

Unit 1: Poetry 

1.2.    “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg

For clear explanation click the above video link

About Poet:

        Carl Sandburg was an American poet born in Galesburg, Illinois to Swedish immigrant parents in 1878. His poetry has a prevalent view of middle-class life and society, for which could be considered as the bard (unfortunately, there is no such thing) of working-class people. The collection of Chicago Poems was published in 1916 after he moved to Chicago in 1912. He worked as a journalist reporting to newspapers like the Chicago Day Book and the Chicago Daily News as well as the International Socialist Review. He had served as a secretary to Emil Seidel, Milwaukee’s Socialist mayor from 1910 to 1912. Having received three Pulitzer Prize – Two for poetry, and One for his publication of Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939), he still remains one of the greatest poets. He died in 1967.

        Sandburg reported on topics that were relevant to the working class of Chicago, including factory conditions, labor rights, race relations, and social justice.

 

About Poem:

Carl Sandburg's poem ''Chicago'' is one of the author's best-known works, and a widely-known example of American Modernist literature. The poem was written in 1914, and first published in the March 1914 edition of the magazine Poetry, along with a group of other poems by Sandburg known as the ''Chicago Poems.'' Included in countless anthologies, this poem made famous the description of Chicago as "City of the Big Shoulders," celebrating its role at the time as the industrial capital of the United States. In 1914 Harriet Monroe of Poetry magazine published six of his radical, muscular poems in the March issue of her forward-looking journal and awarded him the first Levinson Prize for his poem Chicago.

In 1916, Sandburg republished ''Chicago'' in a book of poems titled Chicago Poems.

 

Setting of Chicago-

The poem is set in the streets of early 20th century Chicago and describes extensively the lifestyle of the people who live here. They range from menial labourers to powerful men to petty criminals in the windy and pompous city of Chicago. The poet personifies the city in a lot of ways, and by the end of it, it seems less like a city and more like a merry man, toiling around the place. The city is described physically as an infrastructural place as well as an actual person in that era.

Poem:

Hog Butcher for the World,

   Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

   Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

   Stormy, husky, brawling,

   City of the Big Shoulders:

 

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

   Bareheaded,

   Shoveling,

   Wrecking,

   Planning,

   Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,

                   Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

 

Summary:

        The first five lines of the poem is an address to the city. He calls it with names which describe various jobs and the industry it is popular for Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with railroads, Nation’s freight handler. Further, the poem also personifies the city to a young man who is nonchalant, husky, brawling with big shoulders.  The stanza gives the overall appeal of the city to be a burly and somewhat hard nature man.

        Lines 6 to 9 describe what people say about Chicago, and he sounds to be in agreement with them. ‘They’ refers to people who criticized Chicago for its negative sides. Using ‘You’, ‘I’, and ‘they’ make this sound like a dramatic monologue. The people who the poet address as ‘they’ call the city ‘wicked’ for the painted women (prostitutes) lure the innocent boys to go with them, and the poet agrees, for he has seen it himself. Then they call it crooked, for in the city the roughs are allowed to go freely with guns and to kill people, and the poet agrees too. They also call the city as brutal, for it has made women and children starve for food, and the poet replies in agreement, for he has seen it in the face of women and children.

        The lines 19-22 further explain Chicago as a man in action. In spite of all the handworks, smoke, and dust, it has learned to laugh. It doesn’t think much about the burden but laughs like a young man who laughs without giving much importance to the burden the destiny has thrust upon him. The city laughs like an ignorant fighter who has never lost a battle, boosting his power. The phrases ‘under his wrist is the pulse’ and ‘under his ribs, the heart of the people’ give a more human approach to the city.

        Altogether the line portrays Chicago as an optimistic young man who has learned to be happy in all situations. ‘Stormy, husky, brawling laughter’ presents the city as a person with coarse nature. The phrases’ Hog Butcher’, ‘Tool Maker’, ‘Stacker of Wheat’, ‘Player with Railroads’, and ‘Freight Handler’ have refrained, to sum up, that the embraces its identity – true appearance and nature of a working-class man.

Conclusion:

The poem “Chicago” is a ‘tribute’ to the city of the same name that describes it as being made of the people who work hard all day and literally “make it”. The poet calls Chicago a brave and proud city despite all its shortcomings. He lays down the moral of living in how one should not let the dark backdrop affect our attitude to our present lives.

*****************************************************************************************************

Follow our YouTube Channel to get more English Literature topics Summaries with explanation and Communicative English lesson and Task answers videos. Click this link and Subscribe: Saipedia