Nightmare of Moloch
Thoughts on Part II of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.”
For a while, I’ve been trying to immerse myself in all that is the 20th-century American poet, Allen Ginsberg. I first stumbled upon him through a film titled Howl (2010). Having a mini obsession with Jon Hamm, I decided to watch it: the beginning of my fixation. The experimental film centers around the 1957 obscenity trail of Ginsberg’s noted poem “Howl.” The movie gave excerpts of the poem, accompanied by avant-garde animation, but to understand the piece I read all three parts.
Admittedly the poem went over my head after the first reading. The second and third time, however, I read the poem along with Ginsberg’s Big Table Chicago Reading of “Howl.” Part II is what stuck with me. Hearing the constant repetition of “Moloch” revealed a haunting tone of malice, anxiety, and danger, probably due to my love of the television series Sleepy Hollow. Ginsberg was inspired to write this portion of the poem under the influence of a drug called peyote. It gave him visions of a hotel disguised as a monstrous being which he associated with Moloch. The “monster” symbolized the evils of society: industrialization, corporate power, violence, oppression, etc. A portion of part II is about no one being immune from the power of Moloch, not even Ginsberg. He wrote, “Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon!” Being intertwined with Moloch ruins the best of minds. There is a loss of creativity and vision, which could lead to drug use and alcoholism to achieve a “natural ecstasy.”
Americans are engrained with this longing for wealth at an early age. It’s become a part of the culture so much that the idea has become a deity that most of us worship. Ginsberg writes, “They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!” The best minds chose to leave this monster, but it still drove them insane. Inevitably, we walk away from the all-encompassing Moloch — yet unavoidably we still become senseless.
