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Hymn Of Not Much Praise For New York City Poem Analysis

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Hymn of Not Much Praise for New York City There are many literary devices at work in Thomas James Merton’s poem “Hymn of Not Much Praise for New York City” that contribute to the idea that external appearances may not always reflect internal experiences. Merton uses analogies to prisons and hospitals in addition to a number of references to cocaine and suicide in order to lead the reader in understanding that New York City may look extravagant on the outside while the residents inside are suffering. Thomas James Merton was a Trappist, which was a brotherhood of the Roman Catholic Church known for its extremely quiet atmosphere. Although they did not take an official vow of silence, Trappists are known as “the monks who don’t talk” (Do Trappist …show more content…

In the fourth stanza, Merton utilizes words such as “lock,” “jails,” “confine,” and “penitentiaries” in order to compare the feelings of residents and workers in New York City to those who have been imprisoned for a crime. When one thinks of daily routines inside of a prison, they may imagine a completely different scenario than those who have actually been incarcerated in their lifetime. The same concept applies to New York City- one who has never worked or lived in the city may have a radically different way of thinking than someone who has lived there for the duration of their entire lives. Because of the correlation between the residents and those incarcerated, Merton is able to establish the idea that the people of New York City feel that they cannot escape, and they are “[sentenced] for life” to live and work in the city (Merton, Stanza 4). This idea relates to the main concept of the poem because it shows that the residents feel trapped within the confines of a beautiful city, and that people who do not live there cannot begin to understand their …show more content…

Beginning in the first stanza where he describes New York City as being “crazy as cocaine,” the poem includes a number of references to the drug, such as the term “hopped-up peace” in the fourth stanza which may refer to an exaggerated sense of tranquility that comes when one is under the influence of cocaine. The third stanza includes what appears to be a description of how it feels to be on the drug, with the idea of “minds [filling] with [petitions]” and “gongs of pulse,” which may be side effects of being high. In the fifth stanza, Merton notes that the food in New York City “tastes of iodoform.” Iodoform has been formerly used as a disinfectant, and can be linked to the clean, sterile smell of hospitals. This line could suggest that many of the residents have been hospitalized because of overdoses or drug-related complications, and as a result, all the food they eat reminds them of being in the hospital. Merton is able to lead the audience in believing that these people have been hospitalized due to drug overdoses because he refers to them as “[trying] to keep [their] cage from caving in” (Merton, Stanza 3). This could be a euphemism for mental breakdowns, including suicide, which could be a result of addiction. This claim is later supported by the idea that the “freshest flowers smell of funerals” (Merton, Stanza 5). With all the references

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