To Elsie

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1945

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Disparity and Social Class

“To Elsie” deals with the spectrum of American social class—the ends of which, the speaker presents, are not so different from one another in the end. The poem focuses on the marginalized, impoverished, and lower class people: “deaf-mutes, thieves / old names / and promiscuity” (Lines 7-9), as well as the “devil-may-care men” and “young slatterns” (Lines 10, 13) who populate this contemporary world. However, there are also mentions of the wealthy and elite: “some doctor's family” (Line 40) and “rich young men with fine eyes” (Line 48), both of which are seen as outside forces that the lower class is in service to, or aspires towards. The poem presents social class as a predetermined prison, where young people are encased in a way of living right from the start of lives “hemmed round / with disease or murder” (Lines 32-33).

The disparity between these extremes is an overlying influence throughout the poem as one side—the doctor’s family—is held at a distance from the struggles of the lower class. The higher class families live in comfort while people like Elsie are shuffled from place to place facing deprivation and hardship. However, the eponymous character becomes a bridge between their world and her own as she reveals the truth of what she sees around her. She shows the speaker that they’re all “degraded prisoners” (Line 52) hungering under the same sky. By the end of the poem, the speaker is using first-person plural pronouns to indicate the intangibility of cultural social class and the way privilege does not protect against exposure to the same eroded world.

American Consumerism

“To Elsie” presents a society debilitated by consumerism, to the point where it saturates everyday living and erodes the humanity the country once had. Right from the very beginning, the speaker alludes to a cliché of 20th-century consumerism: America’s “pure products” (Line 1). This is reminiscent of the shift to modernized living around the time this poem was published. However, the line encompasses the human beings that make up the country, rendering them a commodity. The idea continues throughout the poem in the way women become “tricked out” (Line 16) in flashy accessories that have “no / peasant traditions” (Line 19); that is, no sentimental, cultural, or inherent value beyond consumer trend.

The adherence to consumerism is present even in the most intimate experiences, which is illustrated in the way these accessories ultimately lead to a loveless union or marriage. This becomes akin to a business transaction, trading one kind of validation for another, rather than a romance. Once a child is conceived, that too becomes a commodity; she is “rescued” (Line 34) only to be resold to a well-off family for labor. She becomes a “pure product” (Line 1) to be traded at will. While the speaker recognizes the artifice and futility of the consumerism that has infiltrated all aspects of being, they feel trapped within it. The solution is clear but constantly out of reach.

Depravity and Corruption

The speaker presents an America sharply contrasted against the classic American dream: one in which the riches believed to be so plentiful have been inverted to gaudy, hollow propositions of fleeting pleasure. Rather than being a place where even the lowliest can ascend—a motif common in narratives surrounding immigration and social structure—it’s a place where people become pulled downwards by the corruption that has overtaken the landscape. This is apparent in the way young men searching for adventure on the railroads instead find solace with low-class girls, or “slatterns” (Line 13), in a union that’s ultimately meaningless.

These limitations are then passed down to the next generation, in this case a child with a diverse racial background “reared by the state” (Line 36), or raised in foster care. As the poem progresses, the reader sees that the child—now a young woman—passes through exactly the same cycle. Despite their entrapment, they’re able to recognize the truth of their world: “and [if] we degraded prisoners” (Line 52), placing themselves in the same prison as those lower-class individuals who are also entrapped. The inherent corruption becomes more of a corrosion, an irredeemable sickness that is bigger than race or social class.