Spiral Into Madness: “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg
Everyone has their own madness within them, but many are able to conceal it better than others. However it is undeniable that in Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl”, many individuals struggled to understand their sexuality, mental health, and religious beliefs during the 1950’s. Through Allen Ginsberg’s poem, we can better understand how to help recognize some of society’s issues.
In the beginning of the poem Ginsberg asserts that even people with great minds can have madness within them. Allen Ginsberg’s mother, Naomi Ginsberg, had suffered a series of mental breakdowns during the years of depression and was one of his inspirations for “Howl.” We can see that the beginning of his poem repeats many different forms of madness within an individual.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical, naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix…” (Ginsberg 62)
Ginsberg points out that because of the “madness” many individuals faced, they tried to “fix” their problems with alcohol, an array of drugs, or other ways to cope unhealthily.
These emotions also arose for individuals spiraling into madness because it was associated with not fitting into the dominant culture.
“Who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death or purgatoried their torsos night after night,
With dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls…” (Ginsberg 62)
Although we see the suffering of individuals within the poem, Ginsberg also includes what the root of some of these social issues are: religion. He evokes “Moloch,” an evil Canaanite deity associated with child sacrifice from the book of Leviticus.
“What Sphinx of cement and aluminum based open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars!
Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!” (Ginsberg 68)
Using repetition, Ginsberg repeats “Moloch” because it is the root of all the problems within the poem causing serious mental health issues and destroying the young.
Ginsberg, Allen. “Howl.” The Portable Beat Reader, edited by Ann Charters, Penguin Books, 1992, pp. 62–71.
