The Good Life

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2011

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Nostalgia & Memory

While Tracy K. Smith’s poem is largely concerned with wealth and satisfaction on the surface, most of its subtle complications stem from its quieter fixation on memory. Before the explicit appearance of nostalgia, the poem introduces memory in its first simile of the “mysterious lover” (Line 2). The simile, describing the way “some people” (Line 1) discuss money, depicts a one-time lover who without announcing leaves and “never / C[omes] back” (Lines 2-3). While memory may not be an obvious topic of the simile, it is important to note that it depends on people speaking about this lover after the fact. In other words, the way some people discuss money is similar to the way they discuss the memory of a former lover. The central characteristic of this lover is that they permanently disappear, a characteristic which can only be applied to someone after the act of leaving has already taken place. The image functions only by understanding the “mysterious lover” (Line 2) through the lens of recollection. This also suggests that the “people” (Line 1) discussing money once had it and now lack it, and so any reflection on money by them will be characterized by memory.

The nostalgia inherently foregrounded by the first few lines transforms when the speaker introduces herself and her “nostalgi[a]” (Line 4). This nostalgic reminiscing applies to the remainder of the poem, where it is extrapolated and developed into similes. While the memories of the people discussing money were of those without wealth reflecting on a time with it, Smith’s speaker instead reflects on a past of poverty from a present of wealth (or, at least, one without poverty). This reversal of nostalgia makes the narrator somewhat unreliable, casting a hint of doubt on the conclusions of the poem even as they resonate on their own. The image of the “woman journeying for water / From [her] village” (Lines 7-8) in particular interacts with the destabilizing nostalgia of the speaker. The pastoral nature of the simile seems a case study for the quaint, wholesome image of poverty sometimes held by those with economic means. However, the subtlety of this critique balanced against the earnest simplicity of the poem accomplishes the effect of presenting a genuine picture of the good life while quietly reminding the reader of the weaknesses of nostalgia. For the poem, memory can show a life through rose colored glasses, or can at the least tinge an authentic experience with the sweet flavors that exist in memory alone.

Travel & Distance

Many of the images and reflections on wealth in Smith’s “The Good Life” contain notions of travel, distance, and motion toward or away from something. The first simile of the “mysterious lover” (Line 2) illustrates the figure traveling allegedly to “buy milk” (Line 3), but actually away from their lover to never return. After an interlude of declarative statements from Lines 4-6 that concludes with travel (“walking to work”) (Line 6), the second and final simile of the poem continues to depend on concepts of motion. The speaker’s commute to work on payday is transformed into the journey of a woman “From a village without a well” (Line 7) seeking water. Perhaps more than anything else, this simile demonstrates the imaginative importance of travel for the speaker—a mundane trip becomes a quest when it has great significance for the traveler.

The ubiquity of travel images in a poem intent on exploring the nature of the good life emphasizes the time, effort, and distance (material or otherwise) of both life in general and the pursuit of wealth or happiness. The poem may complicate its own answers to the implicit question, “What is the good life?” but it consistently insists that, whatever the answer, reaching it will require a journey.

Money & Wealth

Perhaps the most obvious thematic concern of Tracy K. Smith’s 10-line poem is money. Although the reader may reasonably expect some kind of topical subversion, the most common meaning for the idiomatic “Good Life” title is a life of means. This theme is confirmed immediately when the first line concludes on the word “money” (Line 1). However, the poem also distances itself from a straight discussion of wealth—instead of acting like an ode to money, Smith’s poem positions itself in conversation with how “some people talk about” wealth (Line 1). The speaker’s reflections on money are also presented in terms of relationship and effect. It is not money itself, but its relation to happiness, satisfaction, and living that primarily concern the poem.

Subtle distinctions aside, Smith’s poem continually returns to reflections on wealth. These reflections are primarily oriented toward the concrete, sensory experiences which money provides or prevents people from experiencing. In fact, all purchases in the poem (either implied or clearly expressed) relate specifically to food: “buy[ing] milk” (Line 3), “liv[ing] on coffee and bread” (Line 5), “living […] On roast chicken and red wine” (Lines 8, 10). In this way, the poem centers the abstract notion of wealth on the immediate experiences of the body. Money may be conceptual, but the most important ways it affects our lives are tangibly material. Without money we are “Hungry all the time” (Line 6), living in “a village without a well” (Line 8). For Smith, money’s relation to the abstract idea of “The Good Life” is defined by its physical impact on our bodies: hunger, thirst, travel, etc. There is no good life, no happiness, without the satisfaction of hunger, even if for just “One or two nights” (Line 10).