A Literary Analysis of the Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams Essay

The Lesson to be Learned in William Carlos Williams The Red WheelbarrowEven though it consists of a single sentence broken down into four stanzas consisting of four words each, the poem The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams is a very complex work. Each stanza is further broken into two lines between the third and forth word. The opening stanza is so much depends upon. Depend can be looked at in a number of different ways. The first thing that comes to mind as a definition of depend is to count on, to trust to do something. Children are viewed as dependants. If something is hung from a string it is said to be depending. Sometimes it can be referred to as a particular choice. You might ask your boss for a raise. Your boss may tell you that it all depends on your performance on the job, that it hinges on your actions. This is what Williams is saying in this case. He is implying that a lot hinges on how you read the next line. He is trying to get you to ponder the poem itself. In effect what he is saying is how you view a red wheel barrow is very important to him, and the poem itself. Williams wrote, No ideas but in things, meaning that it was the poets job to deal with concrete particulars and to let ideas take care of themselves. Further meaning that for some poets, like himself a wheelbarrow is simply a wheelbarrow. Nothing that is outside the poem can be placed inside the poem. For instance, it would be simple to say that the wheelbarrow was the thing that a lot depended on. The last stanza of the poem, beside the white chickens might cause the reader to see the wheelbarrow as a symbol. Perhaps so much depends upon the wheelbarrow because it is an important farm implement. The farm could be inferred because the...