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Howl
2
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” What forms of madness/ states of
mind are examined in the text? What has driven inhabitants of the City and Citizens of America
‘mad’?
From section I of Allen Ginsberg’s Epic narrative Howl, the author subverts the social order and
praises those individuals from the beat generation who contribute themselves to anarchy
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9)
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At first glance the people in Howl appear mad, yet Ginsberg assists
us to question how they became mad and if they actually are mad
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In An Emotional Time Bomb: Allen Ginsberg’s
“Howl” at 60, Howl is classed as a “roman à clef based on the sensational and sometimes exaggerated
exploits of the poets own companions
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17),
mentioning “this actually happened” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
...
Ginsberg envelops real life into what
seems a fabricated fiction; he even places himself into the senseless world for dramatic impact, using
the “I persona” (Raskin, 2015, p
...
Howl can be seen as a “mock Homeric recitation of defeated
warriors” (Tytell, 2015, II) in which Ginsberg not only attempts to prolong his companion’s legacy,
but also to set himself against their madness to disguise his own
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9) but to write about madness, you must
fully understand it
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Ginsberg’s narrative of men “who let themselves be fucked in the ass by
saintly motorcyclists” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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Ginsberg’s sincerity and candid writing in Howl reflects his candour
response to doctors during his treatment
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In addition to personal experience, Ginsberg uses form /structure to add dimension to his
world of chaos
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Ginsberg also adapts a lengthy disjointed syntax using free verse, reminiscent of the
conscious thought process (first thought last thought) which he practiced in Buddhism; allowing him
to write lines aimlessly creating breathlessness and chaotic order alongside the shocking and
distressing content, which both physically and emotionally drain the reader
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Carl Solomon to
whom the poem is dedicated, appears as the epitome of insanity; yet he and Ginsberg are described as
“in many ways [each other’s] double” (Raskin, 2015, 367)
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7)
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367)
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Romantics viewed imagination, hallucinations and visions as a power which only poets could possess

and that it connected them to divine insight
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Hallucinations of auditory voices are a classic sign of madness, Ginsberg recalls hearing Blake
reading his poetry aloud
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Ginsberg talks of drugs in section I of Howl posing the question whether this
vision was a transcendent moment of inspiration or rather simply a drug fuelled delusion
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Ginsberg designated
himself as a “ventriloquist of other voices” (Tytell, 2015, I); the outcome is a depiction of a “whole
generation” (Raskin, 2015, p
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Although Ginsberg employs graphic images to express
the horrific nature of an insane society, he seeds their innocence even throughout section I, planting
doubt around the system
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8); essentially warning the reader of the violent images
we are about to uncover
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According to Ginsberg people walk the streets looking for an
“angry fix” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
...
Law and order was so restricting that society wanted to feel a
“child-like sense of awe, terror and beauty about the world” (Raskin, 2015, p
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Ginsberg later
interprets “intoxication” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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13), blaming the alcohol for their erratic behaviour
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10)
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This proves that welcoming
madness can be a spiritually awakening, as Ginsberg experienced; concluding “Ginsberg’s America is
both Hell and Paradise” (Raskin, 2004, p
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Ginsberg’s poem is truly “an awful breach, a scandalous violation of the accepted order and propriety
(Tytell, 2015, II)
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The most blatant type of society’s various mental disorders is impulse control
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13); and also
through brash actions such as “bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight” (Ginsberg, 1956,
p
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These irrational actions are caused by strong urges to overcome both feeling and logic; they
cause the violent side of Ginsberg’s world as they harm other people and themselves without care
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10)
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The idea of “terror” can be seen as a cause of their
hyperactivity, society need a physical outlet to harmonise their inner anxieties
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Ginsberg’s memories of his mother

aren’t pleasant, alluding to one recollection in particular, her denouement, Ginsberg recalls her life
was filled with nothingness and even the “yellow paper rose” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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19) in the end
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and were given
instead electricity hydrotherapy” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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As the finale of Howl
approaches we realise “it is a howl of defeat” (Howl, 1956, p
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Section II explains what has driven inhabitants of the City and Citizens of America ‘mad’; “What
sphinx of cement and aluminium bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?”
(Ginsberg, 1956, p
...
‘Moloch’ is continuously repeated throughout this
section, the word directly translates to ‘king’, emphasising its stronghold over society, even in
suburban America
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Ginsberg
paints a similar picture of Moloch as superhuman, “pure machinery” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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Moloch’s “name is the Mind!” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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Critic Raskin describes
Moloch as “a child-like representation of a superhuman monster” (Raskin, 2015, p
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Moloch
cannot be child-like as is causes “boys sobbing in armies” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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The age of revolution saw
many poets seeking solitude through art, but in this society they seclude themselves through escapism
to madness
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“Moloch who entered my soul
early” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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22), suggest that
Moloch’s permanent existence has invaded Ginsberg’s soul
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The symbol of Moloch’s corruption is extended through its
war connotations
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9), almost as if universities are a training camp for soldiers to
practise and command conformity
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Paranoia isolated hospitals and doctors and their methods and beliefs were questioned, Williams
writes of Ginsberg in his Howl introduction “his ability to survive
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Carl Solomon is the poem’s dedication and Ginsberg felt solidarity with him when they experienced
hospital treatment alongside one another
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24)
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19)
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Ginsberg’s bitter attitude to hospitals, doctors, boundaries and
limitation help us understand the mind set of Carl Solomon as, again they are often referred to as “in

many ways [each other’s] double” (Raskin, 2015, 367)
...
“Moloch murdered Naomi with
madness and Moloch would murder him with madness too unless he could slay the monster with the
sword of poetry” (Raskin, 2004, p
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Ginsberg creates his own personal platform to express his
hatred for anything associated to Moloch
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18) and “amnesia” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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The effects of Hospital treatment is
principally mentioned in Ginsberg’s conclusive section III, an apostrophe to Carl Solomon in which
he unravels the torment both his mother and Solomon endured
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In an
allusion to the whimsical goddesses who cut the thread of life, the female shrews represents order and
limitation, “who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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Ginsberg
blames this regulation for also suppressing the “intellectual golden threads” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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“The madhouse seemed a required station of the cross for the American poet” (Raskin, 2004, p
...
The content of section
III is dominated by the tale of Carl Solomon, Ginsberg transposes from the general to the specific
embodiment of absurdity
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7), and moreover on his way to hell he met Carl Solomon who was its familiar inhabitant
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The conceptual idea of hospital as a safe haven is corrupted with
Ginsberg’s description of it as “an armed madhouse” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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25)
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Ginsberg has been unknowingly diffusing himself into
his tale of insanity and becomes a crucial character in Carl Solomon’s journey, welcoming him to the
“door of [his] cottage” (Ginsberg, 1956, p
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The poem resolves and we actualize that “even in this
hellish world, heavenly beauty emerges” (Raskin, 2015, p
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25), and their
imagination is more powerful than any weapon or any army America can constitute with their blocks
of reality
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367)
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26), the stream of insanity doesn’t dwindle towards the end as
and provides comic relief in its absurdity to a cruel world lacking individualism
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Ginsberg’s empathy for fallen civilization is an appendix to his mentally ill
companions and the forms of madness he has encountered in his life
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Ginsberg shines light on the fractured
attitudes of America’s rule/authority; he speaks from the hearts of the mentally ill to express the mad
ramblings of events they have, this creates terror for the reader and shock as before Howl the reality of
hospitals poor treatments were unrealised
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Bibliography
Ginsberg, A
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San Francisco: City Lights Books
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(2015) Allen Ginsberg: Irreverent, Reverential, and Apocalyptic American Poet
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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
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(2004) American scream: Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” and the making of the Beat
Generation
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Tytell, J
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The Antioch Review
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p
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Available from:
http://eds
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ebscohost
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ezproxy
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ac
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[Assessed 15th December 2015]



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