#212- "Money"

Analysis of Speaker/Rhyme/Meter:

Speaker: This poem has an omniscient speaker. By not giving a first-person point of view in the poem, it makes the idea of the poem more effective by giving money (the main focus of which is to describe the ultimate control it has over people), sole control of the poem in the way that it conveys its meaning to the audience.

Rhyme: By having no pattern of a rhyme scheme, the poem expresses a more matter-of-fact tone to the audience. By the use of this tone, the poet is able to express his main idea: the idea that money is unavoidably a controlling, dangerous thing in one's life.

Meter: By using a variety of line lengths and no pattern in the number of lines per stanza, the poet is able to express the ultimate powerlessness of a person over money. The two shortest stanzas in the poem, two lines each, are the only two stanzas that suggest the possibility of one having control over money, and money having no control over the person. "At first it will seem tame/willing to be domesticated" (1-2), "Fold it frequently; it needs exercise" (16-17). The short length of these two stanzas suggests that they may be the least significant, the false ideas, despite the fact that they are nonetheless present in the poem. These two short stanzas describe money as if it is a dog, which is an important element of the poem in itself (which I will analyze below as a literary device).

Analysis of 2 Literary Devices:

Simile: This poem compares money to four things: a dog "It will delight your friends,/shake hands with men/like a dog and lick/the legs of women" (7-10), an amoeba "But like an amoeba/it makes love/in secret/only to itself" (12-15), a human "reciting softly to itself/ the names of the presidents" (6-7), and a plant "Water it every three days" (18). The most prevalent simile in this poem is that comparing money to a dog. Dogs are typically viewed, perhaps as money is, as "man's best friend." There are very few people in this world that don't like money, depsite those who may claim otherwise. By comparing money to a dog, the poet expresses the idea that money misleadingly appears as innocent and friendly as a loyal dog, not one to turn against you or do you wrong. But by the last two stanzas, this innocent image is proven to be a false one and money is revealed to be a dangerous and evil thing "There will be no pain/ but in thirty seconds/ the poison will reach your heart" (27-29). By comparing money to not only an animal, but also a human, a plant, and even a one-celled organism, this gives the reader the idea that money is in fact ubiquitous, just as living organisms, especially the mircroscopic ones, are ubiquitous on Earth.

Personification: Although money is only compared to a human in two subtle lines "reciting softly to itself/ the names of the presidents" (6-7), this is a crucial factor in the idea of the poem. Human qualities are generally given to inanimate objects in literature as a way to portray them as intelligent, powerful beings. Subtlety is in fact the most important aspect of this poem; money is not an obvious danger, in fact it is ostensibly the opposite. By giving money the qualities of an intelligent, powerful being, but being very discreet about it, these two lines themselves contribute the most to the overall meaning of the poem.

Reflection:

I found the similes of this poem to be extremely effective in conveying the meaning of the poem. Having a fairly sufficient knowledge of and interest in biology, I really enjoyed the poet's concept of comparing money to four different types of living organisms. I also liked the fact that the word "money" is used only in the title of the poem and not mentioned once in the poem itself, but I believe that even without the title, just by the poet's use of language (especially "reciting softly to itself/ the names of the presidents" (6-7), subtley describing a physical characteristic of money without using the obvious qualities of its green color), one would be able to make the connection that the poem is about money.