Analysis of the poem Tenement Room: Chicago

The poem "Tenement Room: Chicago" is simply about the same thing as its title says, a tenement room in Chicago. To show the mood of the room the poet uses imagery. When the poet uses imagery, he uses words to create mental images using the five senses of seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and touching. The poet here tries to show how the room and everything in it is broken, beaten, and old with visual imagery. In the second stanza the port goes on, object after object, describing each. In verses 11 through 17, he describes these objects.

A crippled table, gray from greasy water:

Two drooping chairs, spiritless as wounded soldiers

shoved into a prison hole;

A cringing bed, age-weary;

Corseted with wire, squats a flabby stove

In this corner slumps a punished trunk;

Through the lone window, broke-pained,

light and weather spill the dust-defeated and splintered floor.

By using adjectives such as corseted with wire, the reader can picture in his mind a tangled web of wire, which an out of condition stove sits on. The visual images help the see what the poet is seeing. Images can also create a mood. By using adjectives that show that the objects in the room are old and broken, it makes a gloomy mood in the poem.

In this particular poem, there is also connotation. Connotation is the implied meaning of a word or phrase. The right connotation helps with the picture presented. For example with the verse the day creeps slowly, helps show how time moves slowly. If the poet did not think about the connotation, the word might clash with eth picture presented. For example if it said the day scrambled slowly would clash because the word scramble makes the reader think about going quickly as if in a hurry. Another connotation is Lounge here in gaudy tatters. The denotation of gaudy is bright a flashy. However, that clashes with the word tatters. The connotation of the word is just simply standing out. The tatters of the room stand out.

A simile is a comparison, using like or as, between two objects. A metaphor is a comparison between two objects without like or as. Metaphors and similes help the reader experience and understand one thing in terms of another. In "Tenement Room: Chicago the poet uses metaphor to let the reader experience these things. In verse 12; two drooping chairs spiritless as wounded soldiers shoved into a prison hole, compares chairs to wounded soldiers. When the reader imagines the drooping chairs, he thinks of two wounded soldiers. The chair takes on the attributes of the soldiers. Tired, worn-out, battered, the adjectives that are to describe the soldiers now describe the chairs.

This poem also has personification. When personification is used, non-human things receive human characteristics such as emotions. In verse 5, form the tied room, the room takes on the feeling of tiredness, although rooms cannot feel tired. The room feeling tired simply implies that it is old and is worn-out. This is also apparent in verse 20 to 22; the dusk lays a soothing hand on its whimpering poverty. Dusk does not have hands, and poverty does not whimper. It is just implying that the day is turning into night making the city full of poverty, which needs help (thus the whimpering). Personification helps the reader relates to certain things by giving those things qualities just like the reader has.