Richard Cory Literary Analysis Essay

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Option 1: Analyzing Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory”

Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “Richard Cory” is a poem largely structured around the poetic device of irony. The poem begins by presenting the title character as a handsome, wealthy figure who “glittered” when he walked, according to the poet. The inhabitants of Cory’s town are eaten up by jealousy. However, the final line of the poem notes that Cory one day came home and put a bullet in his own brain and presumably at the same time put an end to the admiration of the townspeople. The poem suggests that even people with apparently happy lives may lead unhappy existences in private. The psychological study of the poem is less Cory, who is not really profiled throughout much of the text, than it is the people who watch and observe him from afar. The poem suggests that Cory was a profoundly lonely man, in contrast to the idealized figure the townspeople believed him to be.

The poem begins almost like a camera zeroing in on a figure in the distance, then moving closer. “He was a gentleman from sole to crown, / Clean favored, and imperially slim” (3-4). The poem is not narrated from Cory’s perspective. He never speaks throughout the duration of the poem. Rather, the poem is narrated through the voices of the townspeople, who form a collective “we.

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” The sentence, “We people on the pavement looked at him,” suggests that the average person was afraid to approach him and merely regarded Cory from afar (2). This might even be a reason for Cory’s unhappiness, because while the poem suggests that Cory was admired, there is no indication that he had any close friends in the town.

The poem makes use of the technique of hyperbole to demonstrate the townspeople’s perceptions of Cory. Again, the use of the pronoun “we” suggests a kind of collective certainty about who the man is and his exterior surface. “And he was always quietly arrayed, / And he was always human when he talked” (5-6). The phrases suggest that Cory dressed in a muted, unostentatious way and did not want to draw attention to himself. This seems to draw the approval of the town, even though they still regard him with awe. The idea that he seemed “human” when he talked is particularly odd, given that someone who is a human being should,….....

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https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/richard-cory-literary-analysis-2172042
   

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