Howl

The final two sections of “Howl” help to resolve/clear up many of the issues brought forth in the first section by showing the reader why the best minds of Ginsberg’s generation were “destroyed by madness.” The first section paints a portrait of a group of people longing for some sort of transcendence, “angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection”-and goes into great detail about the experiences they had while trying to reach this higher plane. Section one is a sprawling account of drug use, [promiscuous] sex, hallucinations, religious experimentation and overall less than acceptable behavior for the society of the 1950’s.  The situations in section one definitely place the Beats on the outside and also show what they longed to achieve by this rejection:  “to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head”

I see section one as a sort of result of what we see in section two. Whereas section one presents us with the outcome, section two answers the question “why?”
 It begins with the question “What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?” The answer is Moloch, society’s pressure to conform to an industrial, capitalist society. Moloch is the material world “Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! Invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible mad houses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!”  This language in section two sets up this urban, industrial world with Moloch as its monstrous leader. In mythology, Moloch is the ancient god who received children as sacrifices...which for me ties back to section one in that Ginsberg and the Beats seemed to have sacrificed their bodies/minds in an attempt to escape Moloch. The ending of this section shows this choice to escape “...They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving!”

We also see this idea of sacrifice in part III as well, where Carl Soloman is characterized as this sort of Christ-like figure- “I’m with you in Rockland where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb”
Part III mingles all of the themes we encountered previously in the poem. We see Ginsberg's political message...the desire to escape a hungry, materialistic society as well as his own personal connection with people he has known (such as Carl Solomon) who have also attempted this.

These ideas of sacrifice, of the need to transcend, to escape a society that rejects and attempts to “fix” outsiders are all stressed in part III and by the end bring the poem full circle.