Sandburg, Carl. "Chicago".

Summary

The speaker seems to find perverse joy in the turbulent cruelty of the city of Chicago. The terrors of the city are neither disguised, nor rendered as beautiful, they are freely presented. The speaker's main reason for loving the city is that the city is alive and proud of being so.

The speaker calls Chicago the "City of the Big Shoulders" and the following lines give an account of the terrors it has to bear. The speaker says he is told that the city is wicked (painted women luring country boys), crooked (murders free to go and kill again), and brutal (hunger). He confirms that it is truth. The speaker believes the sneering voices, but sneers at them, too.

He says there is no other city so "proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning." The city laughs its terrible laugh under its smoke. It laughs as a young man, as a fighter who has not yet lost a fight. It laughs that it is alive and proud of being alive.

Analysis

- a poem of irregular stanza in free verse, its long lines resemble prose

- naturalistic graphic description of the evils of the city

- paradox: the speaker offers a picture of brutality, yet morbidly claims he loves it

- the speaker's intimate relationship to the city is reinforced by personifications

- Chicago is called "Hog Butcher", "Tool Maker", or "Stacker of Wheat"