Howl

Light and dark imagery appears in each section of “Howl.” Ginsberg plays off the usual tropes of light versus dark to highlight confusion, destruction, rising, and sinking, but he also reimagines light and dark through their commonalities. This reimagining sows the seeds for renewed hope—a hope that appears in its fullest in Parts 3-4. This hope thus transforms the light and dark imagery from quicksand into solid ground: a ground on which a more stable future can be built.

In Part 1, words historically at odds with one another dot the dystopian landscape, including “illuminated” (Line 5), “night” (Line 10), and “darkness” (Line 49), as well as the phrases “neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon” (Line 12) and “who sank all night in submarine light” (Line 15), among others. These words and phrases dualistically play together. The play on opposites is a literary device known as parataxis, where the writer juxtaposes seeming opposites without an obvious rhyme or reason. It elicits both train-of-thought and the simplicity of a child making illogical leaps when describing things. For Ginsberg, parataxis informs much of “Howl,” underscoring a staccato effect on words adding to the chantlike nature of the piece. Words like “angelheaded” (Line 3) and “illuminated” (Line 5) not only stand out but suggest both mental and physical light, so Ginsberg’s friends appear like vessels of light stuck in the subterranean darkness surrounding them. Darkness comes up in “night” (Line 10), “supernatural darkness” (Line 4), “grandfather night” (Line 23), and others. The back-and-forth between light and dark imagery paints a hellish world where darkness seemingly reigns. Yet the imagery also suggests that, in the words of a famous Bible passage (Ginsberg was fond of religious imagery), the “darkness has not yet overcome the light.”

In an effort to truly understand what it means to be human and to think without being instructed what and how to think, Ginsberg and his ilk seek illumination and enlightenment, thus breaking out of a dark ignorance, a reliance on the status quo and the unthinking machinery of capitalism—the so-called “machinery of night” (Line 3). Line 12 highlights the connection between light and dark imagery by juxtaposing a traffic light with the sun’s natural light. A traffic light symbolizes ordered movement, and its imagery as something “blinking” suggests a foreboding presence overseeing human life. This interpretation aligns with Ginsberg’s drug-induced vision of the evil false god Moloch, which represents the all-seeing eye of capitalism. The phrase also includes “sun and moon” (Line 12), which are traditional images for light and dark. Though seeming opposites, both the sun and the moon represent muses, celestial bodies, and visionary centers for poets and writers. The common ground shared between these images is that they all provide a source of light; it’s up to the individual to choose which light source to follow.

The image of sinking in submarine light also suggests suffocation by light, and mirrors the queasy feeling of the blinking neon traffic light. Submarines move through water; water represents primordial darkness. The opposite would be surfacing into light and air. Another seemingly oxymoronic phrase is “waking nightmares” (Line 11). The phrase suggests many things: a bad drug trip, lucid dreaming, or otherwise enduring a nightmarish scenario while awake. For Ginsberg, living under capitalism and the restrictive mores of the US was to daily live a waking nightmare. With these phrases, Ginsberg shows just how dangerous false light can be: He and his friends suffer from being stuck in a submarine-like darkness oppressing the very air around them until they choke to death on broken dreams.

In Part 2, Ginsberg accuses Moloch of deceiving people, calling the evil god’s ear “a smoking tomb” (Line 83) and its eyes “a thousand blind windows” (Line 84). The tomb and smoke imagery references Moloch’s desire for child sacrifice through fire and the darkness of the tomb, while “blind windows” (Line 84) plays on something that should have the capacity to let light enter but instead remains forever in the dark. Moloch, however, can be overthrown, meaning these states of fiery darkness and “blindness” can fall away once people seek something different. Parts 3-4 address this breaking from darkness to light.

For Ginsberg, solidarity is literally solid ground, as is seeking the truth and living for a meaningful purpose in life. In Part 3, Ginsberg affirms his solidarity for Carl Solomon. The Christlike imagery here, including “resurrect[ing] your human Jesus from the supernatural tomb” (Line 123), invokes lightness overcoming the dark—a major shift from the first two parts. Jesus Christ died on the cross, and the Romans buried him. He arose and left his tomb but before that, he descended into hell to take the very keys of life and death from Satan. Ginsberg uses Christian imagery here to mimic rising from the dead. He suggests rebirth is possible, and those who shake off the dark spirit of Moloch can find new meaning through their trial by fire. He also conflates light and dark, so that those society deems dark and vile transmigrate and are reborn to become light bearers on earth. The outcasts on the fringes of society are angelic: They bring a message of peace, light, and renewed hope for humanity.