Howl


by Allen Ginsberg (excerpt)


Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars!

Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men

weeping in the parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch!

Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse

and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment!

Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running

money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a

cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!


What does Moloch represent in this excerpt from Allen Ginsberg’s poem "Howl"?

Ahow institutions are sacrificing the humanity of America

Bhow the government is corrupting Americans

Chow the war is causing Americans to lose their lives

Dhow Americans are obsessing over becoming rich