America

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1956

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

America

Ginsberg personifies America and directly addresses it, making it a character in the poem. The country stands for many things in Ginsberg’s mind. More than anything, though, Ginsberg uses America as a stand-in for all that could be good but has been corrupted in the world. Ginsberg is not giving up on America—if he was, he wouldn’t write a poem about how he feels like he must step up to save it; instead, he is taking America to task and using it as an example of the ills of capitalism, reactionist policies, hatred, selfishness, hypocrisy, and militarism. In the poem, America exists as an example of power used for ill instead of good, and Ginsberg believes it’s his responsibility to chastise his wayward nation and steer it back to good.

Time Magazine

Time Magazine, and to a lesser extent Reader’s Digest, is a stand in for American values and 1950s conformity. The magazine, which was extremely popular during the 1950s, set trends and standards in public and private life. Ginsberg specifically laments the magazine’s call for responsibility, but responsibility really just means upholding the era’s status quo values. This meant working hard, behaving properly, marrying, having children, and consuming. Essentially, this was marketed as the American Dream.

Ginsberg’s dreams run counter to this. His dream is much more based on American values, not Time Magazine’s. Whereas the consumerist culture values consumption, Ginsberg values freedom and the ability to follow one’s heart in any direction. This has made him an outcast that can’t be taken seriously.

Yet as hard as he tries to defy this status quo, he admits it is difficult. Just as soon as he criticizes this culture, he admits that he is part of it too. He can’t help but read Time Magazine every week, whether he’s passing by a store or in the basement of a library. No matter what, it is impossible to escape the pull and influence of this capitalist, conformist, paranoid culture.

Xenophobia

Ginsberg uses foreigners as foils to American paranoia. He uses the xenophobic feelings in Cold War America to set up the absurdity of America. The USSR represents the greatest enemy and fear of established American values, but Ginsberg, who advocates for socialism (or at least socialist values), identifies the USSR as more a boogeyman than an actual threat because, to him, America is its own biggest threat. The USSR is just a fear of those who are consumed by the American Cold War machine, and Ginsberg’s only criticism of the USSR is from the sarcastic perspective of one of those consumed Americans.

Ginsberg’s use of Asia, and specifically China, is similar to his use of the USSR. Ginsberg mentions how he goes to Chinatown to get drunk but never gets laid (Line 31), and then he mentions how Asia is rising against him before his joke about a “chinaman’s chance” (Line 48). Whereas he cannot get any use out of it, China looms as this real threat in the mind of America. But Ginsberg’s use of China and Asia is entirely sarcastic, signaling his belief that fretting over this is a waste of time when actual issues exist in America.

Interestingly, Ginsberg returns to the idea of xenophobia and racism when, in his sarcastic parody of Americans, he rationalizes that to fight the Russians, “Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black n******” (Line 72). Ginsberg points out how the only way Americans, who are supposedly committed to freedom and wish to fight those who want to take freedom away, will only advocate for non-white groups when there is a threat and more human power is needed to fight. This is just another example of how the soul of the country has been corrupted.