Summary Of The Red Wheelbarrow

In the poem “The Red Wheelbarrow”, William Carlos Williams uses both imagery and word order to create a picture in his reader’s minds. The first initial picture that is formed, in my opinion, is of a farm setting; readers can visualize a red wheelbarrow, wet, with white chickens around it. However, if we take a closer look at the words, we are be able to see a much more elaborate representation than just an ordinary farm scene. Williams’s placement of particular words, in this poem, is just as important as the words are themselves (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012).

An example of Williams’s word placement can be seen in the first line; it states “so much depends…” (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 563). This opens the poem up for interpretation and when speaking about a typical wheelbarrow, there would not be much depending on it. However, if we interoperate that the wheelbarrow is symbol, then much can depend on it. Williams goes on to say that the wheelbarrow is “glazed” with rainwater; glazed, in my opinion, creates the image of shiny. When red and glazed are put together, the image could be of …show more content…
Analyzing the last line, however, does give us a comparison to the red, glazed, wheelbarrow. The chickens are not emphasized like the wheelbarrow; therefore, I can only assume they are not as important. The word that sticks out the most to me is white; in comparison to red and glazed, the color white invokes the thought of cleaner. These chickens are also “beside” the red wheelbarrow; not helping, in my opinion, just standing. Therefore I feel that the imagery William Carlos Williams creates, when assessing the components separately, then combining them, is of a hard worker that is surrounded by others, not working.

Reference:

Kirszner and Mandell. (2012). Portable Literature:Reading,Reacting,Writing. Nineth Edition. Wadsworth Cengage,