richard cory final revision (2)

8/11/2019 Richard Cory Final Revision (2)

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Gillaspie, Burley, Preston, Battle, Lovelace 1

Joshua GillaspieTyler BurleyCJ PrestonLeshay BattleBrittany LovelaceLit 2000Thursday, 6:30 - 9:45

Nov. 29 th 2012

An Analysis of Edwin Arlington Robinsons Poem Richard Cory

The p oem Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robin son illustrates how

someone who seems to have everything in the eyes of others may be missing the

simplest pleasures in life. Even in todays society , people wish they could take the

place of actors, athletes, or musicians, without knowing what problems those

people might be facing. As Jonathan Freedman argues, We cannot capture

happiness and then sit still and hope to maintain. We change, the world changes,

and our requirements for happiness cha nge all the time (Ben -ZeEv ).

The narrative is from the perspective of one of the towns people, and he is of

the poor working class citizens; he tells the reader this when he says, We people

on the pavement (line 2) , and Went without meat, and cursed the bread (4).

Robinson us es words like imperially slim (4) crown (3) king (9) and grace

(10) to describe Richard Cory. These words suggest that Cory has many great

kingly (10) qualities , fame, fortune, and a wonderful personality. The people

depicted in the poem all envy Cory for the qualities he possesses, and the narrator


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lets the reader know this in stanza three: In fine, we thought he was everything

(11) and in the very next line he adds , To m ake us wish that we were in his place

(12).

The sad thing is that with all the qualities that Cory has he is still missing

something in his life, and the poor working narrator finally realizes this when he

says, And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home an d put a bullet

through his head (15-16). Amy Lowell interprets this in her book Tendencies in

Modern American Poetry: In four words, ["one calm summer night"], is set a

background for the tragedy which brings the bullet shot crashing across our ear-

drums with the shock of an earthquake ["Went home and put a bullet through his

head"]. They appear simple, these poems; and they are really so immensely

difficult (Lowell).

Robinson doesn t tell the reader why Cory kills himself at the end, thus

allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. The critic Franchere points out

to C orys private, inner problem: What private sense of failure, what personal

recognition of his own inadequacy, or what secret unfulfilled longing drove Cory

to suicide Robinson does not say, the reader is left with a sharp sense of

emptiness, of a life wasted, of failure-and of Cor ys hidden agony(? ). The theme

revealed from the dramatic ending is that w ealth and fame cant buy you


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happiness. Richard Cory is missing something in his life; it might be happiness,

but we will never really know.


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Works Cited

Lowell, Amy. Tendencies in Modern American Poetry . New York: Macmillan

Company, 1917.

richard cory final revision (2)

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