We analyze Blok's poem

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The poem "Factory" was written by Alexander Blok in November 1903. For the first time in his work, the young aspiring poet touched on topics that were not as romantic as in the entire previous period of creativity when creating the collection “Poems about the Beautiful Lady”, which was worked on in 1901-1902. The verse "Factory" is part of the "Crossroads" cycle (related to 1902-1904), which also includes the poems "A black man ran around the city", "The Last Day", "A sick man trudged along the shore …", "From the newspapers " and others. This cycle represents the symbolist poet's first attempt to address social issues, touching on the problems of class inequality, overwork of workers, oppression of the ruling classes and new revolutionary mindsets.

Analysis of Blok's poem "Factory" shows that the poet himself deeply sympathizes with factory workers, mercilessly exploited by factory owners, whose image is not clearly spelled out in the poem, but is only marked by mystical references to "an immobile someone" and "a black someone ". In these referencesthere is far more ominous meaning than any detailed description, for it is human nature to fear the unknown instinctively.

Analysis of Blok's poem in this case shows that the poet does not give absolutely any dynamic description of events, but, as if taking paint and a brush in his hands, paints a picture of the life of factory workers in gloomy tones. The epithets "black" and "motionless", so successfully used by Blok, even more than the unknown, emphasize and enhance the ominous impression of the image of "someone" frozen on the wall, counting people behind the tightly locked gates.

Analysis of Blok's poem allows us to see how densely this poem is filled with various symbols, which together create an integral sinister image of a prison factory. Thus, the image of a "deafly locked gate" only enhances the feeling of something sinister and hidden inside, within the walls of the factory. Also, this image, along with the epithet “immobile someone”, gives an additional feeling of static, petrification, lack of life. In this case, the poet uses the technique of lexical parallelism, using different epithets to convey and reinforce the same meaning.

Analysis of Blok's poem in this case allows you to feel all the pain of the oppressive atmosphere of the factory, where ominous silence reigns and only "thoughtful bolts creak". Neither the noise of steps, nor the cries of people, nor conversations are heard outside the gates of such a factory, as if they are the gates to another world - the afterlife. The feeling of pain in the poem is conveyed by the epithets “Zholta windows” and “in the yellow windows.”

Double mention of yellow only further enhances the effect. An analysis of Blok's poem allows us to understand that deliberately using the word form "Zholty" instead of the adjective "yellow", the poet seeks to show the reader that in this case, it is not so much the color itself that is of paramount importance, but rather the transfer of the very feeling of pain emanating from the factory with its help. In such a factory, people do not work, but are in slavery, losing he alth and slowly dying.