Howl

Howl
“Howl” is a poem that I will try to tackle in hopes for more clarity of the poem for myself. Ginsberg’s main character, the angelheaded hipsters, is referring to his friends and the beats of the time. He writes of their knowledge and how they “were expelled from academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull”(Ginsberg: p.9) which seems as though their knowledge surpasses the collegiate level, yet at the same time he describes as homeless. During part I of “Howl”, he constructs his character as a rebellious beat poet that represents the counter-culture of society for that time. Their use of alcohol, drugs, and sexuality helped promote this ragged sort of hap-hazard image of the beats.
Within part I, Ginsberg starts to make his imagery global and I am not sure what the significance of this is, but to perhaps convey they places these beats have either been to, think about, or have influenced themselves. Overall, the majority of part I seems to be drug induced or describing situations on drugs. That could just be my interpretation but a lot of the poem’s imagery seems to correlate to the way different drugs make people feel, think, or hallucinate.
Part II, “Moloch!”, takes a different turn and is in a scorning tone. Moloch, literally is a god/demon-like figure that requires lots of sacrifice. Ginsberg uses the word Moloch is almost every line in part II as something that we have socially constructed. However, even though the beat poets are not addressed in this section, I think it is important that he leaves them out. I think by doing this, he is excluding them from the society which has created Moloch which is corrupt and killing us.
Moloch is representing the evil that is turning the beautiful earth into a cement world. I think it is interesting that he uses Moloch “whose love is endless oil and stone” (Ginsberg: p.22) but at the same time says “Moloch whose name is the Mind!” (Ginsberg: p.22). This suggests that the Mind, is responsible for all of the destruction. He then exempts himself from this Mind when he says that he has abandoned Moloch. This part of Howl basically uses lots of imagery that representation of the take over by cityscape such as “robot apartments!”, “invisible suburbs!”, and “granite cocks!” (Ginsberg: p.22).
Also the use of exclamation points in this part is the end of every statement! (With the exception of the first line which is a question). I think he does this so that the poem reads as a yell. This emphasizes his use of the word Moloch to make it more repulsive.
Part III of “Howl” is about Rockland, which is where his mother was placed in a mental institution. This is another part of the poem where he makes it a personal anecdote. Besides always refereeing to his friends throughout the poem, here he brings it close to home with relatives. I think that he uses the third part to relate not only himself to a mental institution, but he writes, “I’m with you in Rockland” (Ginsberg: p.26) which draws the reader in to be part of the institution as well.
Last, but not least, the footnote to “Howl”, his “Holy” section is a summary of the rest of the poem. I think here, he is trying to use the word “Holy” in an offensive manner for example he says “The tongue, and cock and hand and asshole holy!” (Ginsberg: p.27). This section also reaffirms his rebellion stance against society because he states that his beat friends are holy and at the same time, uses the word holy to mock the cement type world he had written about previously.