Question

Great walls of emerald,
City that is afar,

We gallop along,
Alert and penetrating,
5 Roads open about us,
Housetops keep at a distance.

Soft-curling tendrils,
Swim backwards from our image
We are a red bulk
10 Projecting the angular city in shadows at our feet.

Black coarse-squared figures,
Bump and growl and assemble;
It is the city that takes us to itself,
Vast thunder riding down strange skies.

15 An arch under which we slide
Divides our lives for us,
After we have passed it
We know we have left something behind
We shall not see again.

20 Passivity,
Gravity,
Are changed into hesitating, clanking pistons and wheels.
The trams come whooping up one by one,
Yellow pulse-beats spreading through darkness.

25 Movie posters squall out,
The passengers shrivel together,
As I enter indelicately into their souls.

It is a glossy skating rink
On which winged spirals clasp and bend each other,
30 And suddenly slide backwards towards the center,
After a too-brief release.

A second arch is a wall
To separate our souls from disintegrating cables
Of stale greenness.

35 A shadow cutting off the country from us,
Out of it rise crimson walls,
Yet I revolt;

I bend, I twist myself,
I curl into a million convolutions:
40 Shapes without angle,
Anything to be soft and woolly,
Anything to escape.

Sudden lurch of clamors,
Two more viaducts
45 Stretch out red yokes of steel,
Crushing my rebellion.

My soul
shrieking
Is jolted forwards by a long fiery bar
50 Soft-into direct distances,
It pierces the small of my back.
3
How does the author develop the theme of man's struggle to maintain individuality within modern society?
A.
by describing the mechanical nature of the city and the desire to revolt against it
B.
by describing the emptiness of the city that creates both distance and strangeness
C.
by describing the arches of the city that both divide and unite the passengers
D.
by describing the allure of the city and the passengers' desire to become part of it

Answer 1

A. The poem emphasizes the city's mechanical, dehumanizing features ("clanking pistons and wheels," "red yokes of steel") and the speaker's attempt to "revolt" and "curl into a million convolutions" to escape, showing the struggle to keep individuality against modern urban forces.