Poetry analisis of the bad old days

Name
Instructor
Course
Date
Poetry Analysis of “The Bad Old Days”
Rexroth Kenneth’s poem “The Bad Old Days” presents a detailed exploration of deplorable living conditions in Chicago during the summer of nineteen-eighteen. Although Kenneth uses diverse stylistic choice, his application of figurative language is most outstanding and notable throughout the poem. First, Kenneth’s description of Chicago residents’ plight as despicable is evident from his choice of words. The people’s faces were exhausted and debauched. They looked starved and in a compromising situation; their brains were looted, and their faces depicted frustrations. According to the narrator in the poem, the people depended on charity for their hospital needs. In essence, they did not have basic health care.
Second, the narrator expresses the situation of hunger among residents of Chicago surviving on fried potatoes and cabbage for supper. Unemployment was a critical challenge, and people coming from work were hopeless, “broken and empty, no life.” They had signs of tiredness; the narrator refers to the residents’ situation as “worse than any tired animal” (Rexroth 1). Based on the narrator’s vow, not only is the situation in Chicago but also other places in America.
In nineteen eighteen, Americans experienced diverse challenges at home and abroad. Kenneth’s application of figurative language serves to express the plight of Americans, in Chicago and other places. Based on the narrator’s observations, figurative language and terms used in the poem serve to explicitly reveal their conditions.

Kenneth communicates the concept of suffering among Americans in a vivid and succinct manner using figurative language. Readers’ response to Kenneth’s use of figurative language resonates to the knowledge of historical events experienced at the time. Nineteen-eighteen was the year when the Cold War ended and Americans had felt its impacts including serious deterioration of the economy. Unemployment was high and economic progress minimal.

Works Cited
Rexroth, Kenneth. The Bad Old Days. Accessed from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42803/the-bad-old-days