HOWL

- Allen Ginsberg
Q.1. Significance of the title.

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, published in 1956 is considered the foremost poetic expression

of the Beat generation of the 1950s. Howl is a combination of lamentation, jeremiad, and

vision that discloses the weakness and failings of American society. The poem was praised for

its incantatory rhythms and raw emotion and became the anthem of 1950s Beats.

The title Howl indicates protest as cry, cry for all exploitation, repression and

subjugation. The poet asks people to cry against capitalism, exploitation, repression and

subjugation. This poem, ‘Howl’ stands as the celebration of counter culture movement. The

best minds of the 50s are destroyed by madness. This madness came in different forms. Those

are scholars, best mind, and best generation. This madness came as a counterculture. Counter

culture is not their choice, it is their compulsion. They suffered from hysteria when the

dreams are postponed continuously.

Howl presents a picture of a nightmare world and as some reviews predicted, the

wasteland of its generation. The movement of Howl is from protest, pain, outage, attack and

lamentation to acceptance, affirmation, love and vision-from alienation to communion. The

poet descends into an underworld of darkness, suffering and isolation and then ascends into

spiritual knowledge, blessedness, achieved vision, and a sense of union with the human

community and with God.

Thus, the poem is unified with and the movement carried forward by resuming images

of falling and rising, destruction and regeneration, starvation, under-nourishment, sleeping

and waking, darkness and illumination, blindness and sight, death and resurrection. In Howl

Ginsberg describes the desperation, the suffering and the persecution of a group of outcast,

including himself who are seeking transcendent reality.

 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
Q.2. The poem as a representative expression of the Beat Movement.

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, published in 1956 is considered the foremost poetic expression

of the Beat generation of the 1950s. Howl is a combination of lamentation, jeremiad, and

vision that discloses the weakness and failings of American society. The poem was praised for

its incantatory rhythms and raw emotion and became the anthem of 1950s Beats.

Ginsberg’s poem became the most representative poetic expression of the Beat

Movement in the 1950s. Its first performance in 1955 was a disorderly celebration; and the

obscenity trial in 1957, followed by its publication showed the movement’s social and political

relevance. Ginsberg and other major figures of the movement, such as the novelist Jack

Kerouac, advocated a kind of free, unstructured composition in which the writer put down his

thoughts and feelings without plan or revision to convey the immediacy of experience. As a

result of their non-conformist mindset, the people in the poem often find themselves at odds

with law enforcement, academia, and even the constraints of time. The Beat Generation, or

Beat poets as some were called, were a generation that felt they could never settle into the

lives of corporate jobs and nuclear families.

Ginsberg's most famous poem, "Howl," was a contemplation on a culture of people

living outside of the accepted standards of society. He writes that he saw "the best minds of

my generation destroyed by madness, starving / hysterical naked...." His generation was

destroyed by the hallmarks of the modern world and modern America: disorderly capitalism,

widespread poverty, militaristic foreign policy, and sexual repression. "Howl" was considered

so indecent in its depictions of drug use, sexual acts, and depraved behaviour that it was

banned by local government authorities in 1957. The poem is full of people and places, food,

music, suicides, sex, madness, drugs and unusual language. 'Howl' is a social commentary, a
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
rambling, intense narrative featuring characters, scenes, references and real-life sequences.

Those on the margins of society are prominent—poets, artists, radicals, homosexuals and the

mentally ill—and all are swept along on the long lines that Ginsberg employed to convey deep

frustration, joy and energy. The poem is in an elegiac tone; the tone of mourning. Ginsberg

presents a long list of the activities; therefore it is called the catalogue technique. The title

Howl indicates protest as cry, cry for all exploitation, repression and subjugation. The poet

asks people to cry against capitalism, exploitation, repression and subjugation. This poem,

‘Howl’ stands as the celebration of the counter-culture movement. The best minds of the 50s

are destroyed by madness. This madness came as a counterculture.

Ginsberg's poetry, along with other Beat Generation works, thus became a seed for the

rebellion, protest, and cultural revolution that would mark the late 1960's and early 1970's.

Thus, ‘Howl’ embodies the essence of the Beats’ voice

 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
Q.3. Madness as a theme in the poem:

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, published in the year 1956 also known as Howl for Carl Soloman.

Ginsberg tackles the theme of madness from two different points of view: on the one hand, he

explores a madness as a mental condition; on the other hand, he explores madness as a state

of mind that can be induced by narcotic substances.

One of the most significant elements for the way Allen Ginsberg’s personality, and

eventually Howl, took shape was his mother’s mental health. In his childhood, Ginsberg’s

mother suffered from mental paranoia and had to spend her life in and out of asylum until she

passed away. As a consequence, Ginsberg spend most of his life trying to show that madness,

the mental condition that has deprived him of of his mother, is a mental state caused by the

unachievable standard imposed by the modern society. Indeed, in Howl Ginsberg claims that

modern society has driven the most promising men of his generation destroyed by madness

by making them feel as the strange one. Madness, in his point of view, should not be regarded

as an illness that ruin people’s mind, but as an added value that let people see behind the

surface of reality.

In, Howl Ginsberg could be easily referring both to his father and to the 1950s American

society, critiquing a stereotyped model of life that he experimented in his family. Ginsberg also

experienced what it does mean to be considered mad in the first person as he had spend eight

months in an asylum.

As Ginsberg describes in the third part of the poem: “ I’m with you in Rockland where

we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own soul’s airplanes roaring over the roof

they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginery walls col—lapse

O skinny legions run outside O starry – spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
victory forget your underwear we’re free” (425-433). Ginsberg uses drugs as a medium to

explore his inner self and to discover what the society made him repress. The lines carries

readers in another world made of confused moving images. The lack of punctuation makes

reader enter Ginsberg’s mind and explore with him the different realities that he was able to

see.

Therefore, Howl represents the meeting between two different types of madness. On

the one hand, there is the world of the mentally ill, a world that Ginsberg experienced very

closely through his mother and his friends, but which he never joined. The world that was

regarded by the society as sick and wrong, but that was for Ginsberg fascinating and

intriguing: the world that the society wanted to get rid of. On the other side, there is the world

that Ginsberg has decided to create to escape the reality that oppressed him, to be able to feel

closer to those he loved and to discover new aspects of himself. The world that he could reach

whenever he wanted thanks to the use of drugs. Between the two worlds, there is his creative

process that allowed Ginsberg to turn his experiences into words, doing what many writers

tried to do before and him: explore the human nature in all its facets.
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
Q.4. Mental illness as a theme in the poem

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, published in 1956 is considered the foremost poetic expression

of the Beat generation of the 1950s. Howl is a combination of lamentation, jeremiad, and

vision that discloses the weakness and failings of American society. The poem was praised for

its incantatory rhythms and raw emotion and became the anthem of 1950s Beats.

The theme of mental illness and its frequent result in poverty is especially present in

Part 1 of "Howl." This focus is notable given that there was very little understanding of mental

illness and its social impacts at the time Ginsberg wrote "Howl." The poem begins with the

famous line, "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical

naked," and continues in that vein, describing the suffering of Ginsberg's peers. "Poverty and

tatters" is the state in which these wildly creative people exist, considered by society to be

crazy and kicked out of mainstream art and literature. They end up in psychiatric hospitals, in

jails, and living in boxcars in a railroad yard, asking for soup where they can get it. They

stumble "to unemployment offices," end up in tenement houses, and the money gets spent on

any substance that will take them out of their despair into a better state of mind.

The "best minds" Ginsberg speaks of, especially his friend to whom the poem is

dedicated, Carl Solomon, see riches all around them but are rejected and cast out from this

wealth, kept away from it by walls, both visible and invisible. The speaker's cry of anger goes

even beyond just the desperate loneliness and outcast status of the mentally ill. He extends

this isolation by society to people of his generation who are trying to reach a truer existence

through their art, music, drugs, and sex, and as a result are kept out of any kind of prosperity

they might otherwise reach. Part 2 describes Moloch, the representation of the industrial

machine that keeps wealth flowing upward, built on the backs of the poor. "They broke their
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!" says the speaker. He understands how Carl and others ended

up in places like Rockland, a psychiatric hospital described in Part 3, repeating the refrain "I'm

with you in Rockland" to signify that understanding. The speaker has compassion for those in

need and those who suffer from poverty, mental illness, and despair brought on by the hand-

to-mouth lives to which they have been condemned.

In conclusion, the theme of madness in the poem is a thread that binds Ginsberg

personal experiences together, while embodying a rallying cry of the Beats Generation. The

speaker of the poem has compassion for those in need and those who suffer from mental

illness, and despair brought on by the hand-to-mouth lives to which they have been

condemned.
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
Q.5. Sexuality as a theme in the poem

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, published in 1956 is considered the foremost poetic expression

of the Beat generation of the 1950s. Howl is a combination of lamentation, jeremiad, and

vision that discloses the weakness and failings of American society. The poem was praised for

its incantatory rhythms and raw emotion and became the anthem of 1950s Beats. It expresses

many themes regarding capitalism, religion, and madness, the theme of sexuality is

indispensable to the meaning and message of the poem as a whole because it can be linked to

every other theme.

“Howl” depicts how the Beat members experimented with various facets of their

identities. By exploring and experimenting with their sexuality, they showed how people are

diverse in their desires and they attempted to break social taboos regarding sexuality.

Although they were persecuted by mainstream American society, they remained steadfast in

their belief that people should have sexual freedom.

First, the poem portrays how capitalism distorts individuals’ sexuality. The growing

number of homosexuals in the mid-twentieth century challenged the capitalist system because

they had the possibilities of relationships and sex without procreation and the passing down

of inheritance. Homosexuality or any other non-normative sexuality threatened the family and

household system and in a broader sense, it threatened the moral fabric and national security.

The connection between capitalism and sexuality raises the question of whether the fight to

end oppression against homosexuals is synonymous with the fight to end capitalism.

Secondly, Ginsberg weaves different religions together. In the poem, there is a collision

between religion and sexuality. Unlike the twenty-first century, in the 1950s, followers of

many religions believed “abnormal” sexuality to be a sort of cultural degradation.

 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
Finally, Ginsberg depicts the inhumanity of psychiatric hospitals that try to repress the

sexualities of patients, causing them to become mad. Overall, the poem Howl shows how

instead of hiding and trembling in fear, the Beats fought by releasing everything that they

were repressing. They howled.

Thus, “Howl” reflects the time in which it was written, but it also transcends it. The

spectrum of human sexual behavior and activity is wide and multifaceted and perhaps it is not

even fixed to this date. The issues regarding sexuality continue today.

Q.6. Freedom as a theme in the poem

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, published in 1956 is considered the foremost poetic expression

of the Beat generation of the 1950s. Howl is a combination of lamentation, jeremiad, and

vision that discloses the weakness and failings of American society. The poem was praised for

its incantatory rhythms and raw emotion and became the anthem of 1950s Beats

"Howl" is a raging manifesto against the repression of those who create art, seek

enlightenment, and suffer for wanting to express themselves freely. In the era of McCarthyism

when liberal artists, writers, scholars, and actors were reeling from baseless accusations of

espionage among their peers, fear of appearing anything but mainstream ran rampant.

Ginsberg was among those who wouldn't cave in and tone down their art for the sake of so-

called normality. The speaker rails against the universities, noting that those who sought total

freedom of expression got in trouble for doing so and were "expelled from the academies for

crazy and publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull." Freedom for the people in

this poem came in the form of drugs, sex, and jazz, "illuminating all the motionless world of

Time between." However, there's a price for freedom at this level of ecstatic expression. The

speaker details the suffering of people who live out loud and are taken down for it by the
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
police, by doctors, by "blasts of leaden verse," poetry that kept its ideas caged within

traditional forms and could not accept anything else as true art. Publishers also served as

instruments of repression, as the speaker decries "the mustard gas of sinister intelligent

editors." In "Howl," this type of repression leads to jail, madness, suicide attempts, and

hospitals.

The specter of the Korean War (1950–53) and the 1950s repression of McCarthyism

appears through Moloch, the focus of Part 2. The "sphinx of cement and aluminum" who "ate

up their brains of imagination" is the repressive government, forcing capitalism and

conformity on the people. The "Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is

running money!" brings together the evils of oversized wealth at the expense of the poor, the

children, and the elderly, with forced enlistment in the military to fight wars that make no

sense. Part 3 extends compassion for those who suffer under the thumb of repression and

struggle with mental illness, in particular Carl Solomon, who spent time in Rockland for

depression. Ginsberg refers to the hospital as an "armed madhouse," the opposite of a healing

experience, where instead of therapy and understanding, patients are granted "fifty more

shocks." The nation's unwillingness to deal with life on life's terms at street level builds walls

around people seeking peace, freedom, and expression of their own truth.
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
Q.7.Drugs as a theme in the poem

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, published in 1956 is considered the foremost poetic expression

of the Beat generation of the 1950s. Howl is a combination of lamentation, jeremiad, and

vision that discloses the weakness and failings of American society. The poem was praised for

its incantatory rhythms and raw emotion and became the anthem of 1950s Beats.

Ginsberg saw drugs as an escape from the ordinary life and as a source of inspirations.

In his poem "Footnote to Howl, Ginsberg praises the madness caused by the drugs by saying,

Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's

an angel! The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy! The

typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!

(6-12) This ecstasy was a state of mind necessary for the poet to become this holy entity able

of creating an even more holy literary product.

Together with his friends, he looked for experiences like hallucination by trying

different kind of drugs, alcohol and other means of intoxication. As a consequence, drugs

become a medium to free their consciousness and to get inspiration in the creative process

and to explore his inner self. It helped him discover what the society made him repress while

feeling a connection whit his closer friends who decided to share this experience with him.

The use of drugs together with the time he spent into the asylum helped Ginsberg in

projecting himself into Rockland with his friend Solomon. If it is true, as he admitted, that he

used drugs to expand his vision of reality during his creative process, he describes in the third

part of "Howl." As a matter of fact, the descriptions are so detailed that the reader is

transported into the poem without even realizing it. When Ginsberg writes, I'm with you in

Rockland where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls' airplanes roaring
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
over the roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary

walls col--lapse O skinny legions run outside O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war

is here O victory forget your underwear we're free (425 433) the reader is carried in another

world made of confused moving images. The lack of punctuation makes the reader enter

Ginsberg’s mind and explore with him the different realities that he was able to see.

Therefore, in Howl Ginsberg creates an escape reality with the help of drugs that ables

him to feel closer to those he loved and to discover new aspects of himself. The world that he

could reach whenever he wanted. Between the two worlds, there is his creative process that

allowed Ginsberg to turn his experiences into words, doing what many writers tried to do

before and him: explore the human nature in all its facets.
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
Q.8. The narrative voice

Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, published in 1956 is considered the foremost poetic expression

of the Beat generation of the 1950s. Howl is a combination of lamentation, jeremiad, and

vision that discloses the weakness and failings of American society. The poem was praised for

its incantatory rhythms and raw emotion and became the anthem of 1950s Beats

The narrative voice in "Howl" is more than just a speaker invented by the poet—it is

directly linked to the poet himself, talking about his friends and fellow artists. The job of

creating art, to Ginsberg, is vital to the transcendence into spiritual release. However, society

doesn't accept these poets, writers, and artists who speak the unvarnished truth in language

people actually use with each other. Society actively represses and ignores them, forcing them

to go underground and depriving them of their livelihood. Ginsberg uses a voice of anger to

rail against the resulting horrors his friends experience. The voice is that of a person who has

seen too much suffering and has experienced too much of it himself. The voice is also that of a

friend who wants to tell another friend that even if he is suffering, experiencing joy and rising

above the hell he is in is still possible.

The voice in this poem goes from anger and insistence on being recognized in the first

section to a mix of anger, fear, and loathing in the second section. The voice describing Moloch

is frantic, with every line after the first an exclamation of another form of evil. The poet is

shouting at Moloch, trying to stand his ground even as he admits that he has willingly allowed

Moloch to infiltrate his soul. He is working hard to exorcise Moloch from his experience and

bring relief, not only to himself but also to his entire community of suffering artists.

The voice of the last section is compassionate, addressing Carl, Ginsberg's close friend.

The speaker describes all of the terrible experiences that Carl has had at Rockland, a
 HOWL
- Allen Ginsberg
psychiatric hospital, as he struggles with his shaky grip on reality. There is no punctuation at

all in this section, but the voice is measured, using the refrain "I'm with you in Rockland." The

voice speaks as if in prayer, but in a common language rather than an elevated one, attempting

to bring love and freedom to his friend.