Murder, Suicide, Imagination: Comparison of “Vermillion” by Slipknot and “Richard Cory” by Edwin Robinson
“I’m happy.” “I’m sad.” “I love you.” “I hate you.” “It’s a beautiful day.” “It’s a beautiful day to kill myself.” Human emotions can be confusing. These can go back and forth from self-loathing to loving, from euphoric to miserable, so on and so forth, and hardly anyone can understand one person’s train of thought through the outside. After reading “”Richard Cory”” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, I was left, thinking of my favorite band, Slipknot, and their song “Vermillion”. This song has so much hope in it up until the reader reaches the end, and then the story becomes much more upsetting, much like that of “”Richard Cory””. In the end of the song the singer identifies that this person whom has been built up and sideways is not, in fact real. In “Vermillion” all these emotions seem to combine along with the confusion of whether the speaker truly loves this creature he seems to idolize, or if it is simply himself talking about hopes and despair, but as the same personified idea. As well as in “”Vermillion””, “”Richard Cory”” shows the fluctuations of human thoughts, and that how a stranger looking at a situation may not quite understand how it happened or why, though, with more information, the reasonings can become exponentially clearer.
“She isn’t real! I can’t make her real!” Cory Taylor belts out in the last verse of “Vermillion”. This song goes through all the emotions of love and of going crazy. He begins with “Oh (She’s the only one that makes me sad)/ She is everything and more…” This statement shows that he has so much emotions towards her that she makes him depressed, yet, also makes him euphoric because of his “aphid attraction.” This means that he has a seemingly parasitic attraction to her, or that his feelings for this girl suck the life out of him. After a few lines he continues with, “I exist through my need/ To self-oblige” which refers to how his entire life is essentially dedicated, naturally so, to keep himself happy, which is a common need in life, for a satisfying it. In the end, as he says “She isn’t real! / I can’t make her real!” He is identifying that the creature he so desires is a figment of his own ideals. It would be impossible for her to survive, and he cannot create this bond with another human. Partially because it would kill him, and also because, no matter his desires, he is not able to let himself feel.
“Richard Cory”, on a separate note, was known to others as a well-off man, who would always greet and be merry. He wanted for nothing, however, the ones with the most given to them, and the most around them, can feel just as lonely as those who have nearly nothing. The poem shows that he distanced himself from the others, emotionally. This led to his suicide by gun in the lines, “And “Richard Cory”, one calm summer night,/Went home and put a bullet through his head.” This ending of the poem then shows that even a man with everything, still ends up with nothing. Throughout the poem, the poor are, in a way, being compared to the rich “Richard Cory”. It is not a resentful comparison of how “Richard Cory” is a scoundrel. It is simply that he seems to be happy all day, he has everything he needs in life, and yet, he still put a bullet through his head, while others worked and slaved. An extremely wealthy man who did not need to care about anything that the poor worried about daily, such as food, water, shelter, and other necessities, still had enough sorrow and pain in his life to cause him to end his life.
The song “Vermillion” and the poem “”Richard Cory”” both show the immense loss a person can endure. In “Vermillion”, the song refers to a female like figure who consumes the speakers every thoughts and ambitions. The female character is then referred to as imaginary with the lines “She isn’t real! I can’t make her real!” This seems to cause a strain in the speaker, as he is conflicted with the imaginary, perfect, and yet miserable creature that he wants. However, with “Richard Cory”, the speaker is very straight forward.
The speaker in both texts is of a different personal sense. In “Richard Cory” the author is telling what happened as a third person omniscient narrator as opposed to a first person narrating a poem. The change between first and third person, in respect to how a story can be received, is extreme. In the story of Richard, he is originally perceived as a man who may be extremely wealthy, but he still is down to earth enough to smile and wave at common people. When Richard is seen as being higher, yet being the same as most others, this causes a light sense of fraternity between the audience and the character. During his suicide, it draws questions such as “Why? He was so happy.” And other variants of those. In “Vermillion”, the first person mainly adds to the perceptions, making them more understandable in terms of why, how, and what of a situation, especially of a suicidal, morbid, depressing situation. This song shows that he is breaking apart from this love and hate in himself. The singer does not quite understand his own situation, yet he does seem to want to take action against it, as opposed to nothing.
In the end, these two works, “Vermillion” by Slipknot and “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, are strikingly similar between themselves in the aspects of themes and of mental uses. However, they do have differences which must be thoroughly noted. These differences include different personal tenses, which has its own effect on each of the works, reasonings behind the confused thought processes, and, lastly, why the main characters seem to not believe in themselves as humans who are worth surviving, regardless of their pasts, futures, and what led them to the position.
Citations
Robinson, Edwin Arlington, and Robert Mezey. The Poetry of E.A. Robinson. Modern Library, 1999.
slipknot. “Slipknot — Vermillion [OFFICIAL VIDEO].” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Oct. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKcbYUwmmlE.