18 pages • 36 minutes read
Robert PinskyThe Street
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Wealth Gap
The central anecdote of the poem takes place on Rockwell Avenue in the United States, presumably the place where Pinsky actually grew up. Yet the poem starts with a generalization about “the street” as a concept that stretches back to an older time, prior to America’s founding. The starting image is that of workers sweating with effort as they prepare for the funeral of an emperor’s "favorite" (Line 7) child. The emperor and child are not named, indicating that they are emblems of powerholders rather than specific historical figures.
In response to the death of the child, two groups are distinguished. The first is the upper class—a powerful elite who, even in death, have access to luxuries. The child’s corpse will be “propped seated / On brocade, with yellow // Oiled curls, kohl on the stiff lids” (Lines 8-11). The decorating of eyelids with kohl (black makeup) is an ancient Egyptian tradition that carried over to Rome. It suggests luxury, as do the brocaded cushions.
The rest of those on the street will be made to work to prepare for the funeral arrangements. The “Wainwrights and upholsterers work finishing / The wheeled coffin” (Lines 5-6). The "Slaves throw petals on the roadway / For the cortege” (Lines 11-12). Pinsky writes of “Languid flowers shooting from dark / Blisters on the vine, ramifying / Into streets” (Lines 13-15). The speaker makes an analogy between these petals, which will be crushed under the wheels of the coffin, and the people who are preparing the street for the funeral procession.
The emperor is shown to be vulnerable. He has lost his "favorite" (Line 7) child, yet the poem implies that he has more children. Even while suffering a blow, the emperor uses his loss to demonstrate his wealth and to force the working class to stay up all night serving his pomp and circumstance. By contrast, the speaker says:
On mine,
Rockwell Avenue, it was embarrassing:
Trouble—fights, the police, sickness—
Seemed never to come
For anyone when they were fully dressed.
It was always underwear or dirty pajamas,
Unseemly stretches
Of skin showing through a torn housecoat (Lines 15-22).
The poem shifts from a street of an empire preparing for a funeral to an inconspicuous street in America where working-class people suffer blows in a way that is more “embarrassing” (Line 16). Where the emperor spends all night preparing, or having prepared for him, a dead child’s body, the people on Rockwell Avenue face their troubles while caught off guard in their undergarments or worst clothes.
The central anecdote of the man throwing his shoe at a car is also an allusion to class differences. The stranger who seduces the man's wife has a car. The speaker does not say it directly, but it is possible that the man who throws the shoe does not have a car. In the 1950s or 1960s where Pinsky grew up, cars were not ubiquitous, and having a private automobile was a sign of middle-class or upper-class wealth.
While the poem makes the point that death comes for everyone, rich and poor alike, a stark contrast is drawn between the working class and ruling class. The emperor never appears on the street. The speaker never sees the man in the car, only the car itself driving away. The reader sees only those who are working for the elite and those who are suffering together. The elite are distant figures who do not participate. Meanwhile, the workers who prepare for the coffin are all part of the same “vine” (Line 2). They live their lives in full view of one another, as the man on the street who throws his shoe.
Dignity and Autonomy
American mythmaking would suggest that every person has self-determination and the ability to direct their fate. In “The Street,” Pinsky suggests that those on the street, specifically the working class, are being carried along by a vine rather than taking action to control the movement of that vine.
The vine full of flowers metaphor suggests something that occurs naturally. Vines grow everywhere and are somewhat chaotic, growing at length wherever they find room, spreading in ways that are unpredictable. In comparing the people on Rockwell to the blossoms, the speaker suggests they live disorderly, uncontrolled lives. They themselves are powerless to affect their conditions:
Once a stranger drove off in a car
With somebody’s wife,
And he ran after them in his undershirt
And threw his shoe at the car. It bounced
Into the street
Harmlessly (Lines 23-28).
The man has no recourse to address the situation except to throw his shoe, which proves to bounce “harmlessly” (Line 28). There is some irony when the speaker writes that the man “had too much dignity / To put it back on” (Lines 29-30). He already committed an undignified act by running into the street in his underwear and displaying his impotence in “crying in the street” (Line 31).
The speaker compares the man to a “trick rider in the circus parade” (Line 38) who is merely riding the vine or "[dragon]" (Line 40) that carries him along. The allusion to the circus connotes people put on display for the amusement of others. A “trick rider” only presents the illusion of being able to ride, and the performers are controlled by a circus master who tells them what to do.
All of this suggests that the people on Rockwell Avenue are not in control of their fate but are instead being manipulated by others, made to serve their masters, the way the "slaves" (Line 11) are made to throw petals under the emperor’s wheels. The men and women on Rockwell Avenue serve the amusement of the ruling class, including the stranger who drives away with the wife of the man who throws his shoe at the car.
The Cyclical Nature of Life
The emperor’s dead child and the man throwing his shoe demonstrate both how the world has changed and how it has stayed the same, pointing to the cyclical way the social fabric arranges itself in systems of economic hierarchy and exploitation.
In the opening stanzas, the “wainwrights” (Line 5) or wagonmakers prepare the wheels of the coffin for the emperor’s child. The next day, after the workers have stayed up all night, "streak[ing]" (Line 1) the street with their “effort” (Line 1), the "slaves" (Line 11) throw flowers under the wheels.
The man throwing his shoe is a blue-collar worker. He appears in his underwear, as opposed to having the time and luxury to dress himself up in the finery of brocade and kohl. The man in the car drives away much faster than the shoeless man can run. This echoes the image of the wheeled coffin running over the flower petals; "slaves" (Line 11) throw the petals under the wheels, and the wagonmakers sacrifice their time to make the wheels that will eventually run over the petals on the street.
Pinsky ends this anecdote by comparing the man to a part of the town's annual "circus parade" (Line 38), suggesting that it is part of a repeating cycle. Scholars have postulated that the rise and fall of empires and of democracies are also cyclical. This might suggest the futility of trying to escape one’s station, just as trying to escape seasons or mortality is also futile.
The speaker referencing Ivanhoe is another way Pinsky suggests that history is repeating itself. Ivanhoe is an English book about race (among other things), written in the 1800s but taking place in the medieval period. The reference is multi-dimensional, harkening back to a recent past that itself harkens back to a distant past. This, added to the reference to the ancient emperor, connects the modern-day anecdote to a history of recurring circumstances.
Throughout history, the poor have been subjugated by the wealthy. People of different races have come together to work for the ruling classes. Immigrants have worked side-by-side with other immigrants and found solidarity in their plight. It is as cyclical as farming. All people are part of the same "vine" (Line 2).
