Sunday, March 30, 2008

#238- Riddle, William Heyen



William Heyen's poem, Riddle, is a very hard hitting poem that focuses on the Holocaust and the various people who took part in it. Through this poem it becomes obvious that the Holocaust is not the fault of one person, but of many. I thought that there was a great realization in this poem; many people blame one person for the Holocaust, yet many people took part in it and carried out his wishes without a second thought. This can be seen in stanza five, "and some herded them in,/ and some dropped the pellets,/ and some spread the ashes,/ and some hosed the walls" (17-20). The Holocaust was not the result of one person's bidding, but of many people's blind following. In a way, the speaker is pointing his finger at everyone of us for the Holocaust because we just sat around and did nothing while these horrors continued to happen. While reading this poem, I realized that it really isn't a riddle who killed the Jews, we all did. We all contributed to the devastating events that occurred and this poem just shows that everyone is at fault. "And some planted the wheat,/ and some poured the steel,/ and some cleared the rails,/ and some raised the cattle." (21-24) even the people who grew the food and worked the rails were at fault because they supplied the Nazis with food and supplies.


The speaker of this poem is the poet himself. He is reflecting on the events of the Holocaust and how people blindly blame one individual for the death of many, even though many people were responsible. William Heyen lived during the Holocaust, which would point to his strong feelings and opinions towards this genocide and his knowledge of the people who took part in it. He speaks of the people he knew that were affected by it saying, "My friend Fritz Nova lost his father-/ a petty official had to choose./ My friend Lou Abrahms lost his brother. Who killed the Jews?" (9-12) This just goes to show that everyone was affected by the Holocaust and that even people who were close to you could be lost to it, no one was safe. The rhyme scheme of this poem is ABCB where only the second and fourth lines rhyme. This almost gives the poem a list-like form, this and this happened, and because of these things, that happened so who is responsible? The rhyme schemes show how action was connected to the preceding event, "David Nova swallowed gas,/ Hyman Abrahms was beaten and starved./ Some men signed their papers,/ and some stood guard."(13-16) this quote really shows how because of many events, this horrible thing was able to happen. There is no steady meter in this poem. The absence of meter shows how not one thing lead to the next, but how many happenings brought about the result. There is no one person to blame, and so there is not one meter to rely on.
One of the most obvious devices in this poem in repetition. Here the repetition emphasizes the fact that it was not one person's fault, it was not one person who killed the Jews. Repetition of "not I" (lines 5-8) shows that no one wanted to take the blame for the events that occurred, while the "and some" (17-24) shows how there were groups of people involved in every step of the genocide. Another device used in this poem is understatement. Many of the events are understated in the way that he described them. Heyen took out the grim and gorey details and left just the brief outline of what really happened. "dropped the pellets" (18), "spread the ashes" (19), and "smelled the smoke"(25) are all understatements of the horrors that one would have experienced in one of those camps. Understatement leaves the reader to imagine for themselves the details that occurred, it leaves room for the imagination.

1 comment:

Mr. Klimas said...

Good job with a very powerful poem.