Richard Cory Poem Analysis – Edwin Arlington Robinson

This was a paper submitted to my freshman English class.  Please feel free to site this, I am by no means a literary scholar but maybe this will provide some new ideas.

In the poem “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson, we are told about the existence of a man who appears to lead the ideal life. Initially, when I first started reading this poem it seemed simple, short, and predictable; the poem was more or less boring. While I was very close to flipping the page, I decided to at least finish the poem. When I reached the last line of the poem my perception of “Richard Cory” completely turned around. Not only did this poem leave me questioning about the life of Richard Cory, I was plain old shocked. In a matter of one line, the poem went from very predictable and simple, to open-ended and complicated. Unsure about what the piece was truly saying, I wanted to look deeper into Robinson’s poem and see what was hidden beneath the poet’s words. Why was I so incredibly shocked with the author’s last line?

Robinson opens the poem with the lines, “Whenever Richard Cory went down town, we people on the pavement looked at him.” I believe Robinson uses these opening lines to normalize Richard Cory while still setting him apart from the townspeople on the pavement. By traveling downtown we see that Richard Cory is no different from the onlookers, he is equal. Yet, Robinson uses the line “people on the pavement looking at him [Richard Cory]” to show that Richard Cory is, in a sense, a celebrity. Just as people follow the lives of movie stars, the townspeople follow and watch Richard Cory. By using this tactic to normalize the main character and still set him apart from the others, readers can connect to Richard Cory but still understand he is different from the rest of the town.

The next two lines we read are, “He was a gentleman from sole to crown, clean favored, and imperially slim.” Personally, I think Robinson is using these lines to strengthen the reader’s connection with Richard Cory and establish our trust with the main character. “A gentleman from sole to crown” implies that Richard Cory’s character is entirely good from the very bottom of his feet to the very top of his head. Although this feels like an extreme exaggeration of one’s character, it is an effective method to convince readers that Richard Cory is a good person. The phrase “Clean favored” adds to the gentleman status of Richard Cory, he is not a person to conduct foul deals or deceive others. The final phrase “Imperially slim,” feels as if it could have two meanings. Either the author is referring to the characters slim body structure, as in a body as fit as a king, or he is using the phrase to relate Richard Cory to the ruling powers of a king. Keeping the meaning of the line in par with the poem, I think he is actually talking about the powerful king-like side of Richard Cory. By connecting the word “slim” to the idea of a king, Robinson is implying that Richard Cory has a king-like presence but lacks some of the other pieces of being a king. We are not told how king-like Richard Cory is and do not have a way to measure his king status. Instead, the author is simply stressing and wants us to recognize that the character has king-like qualities.

Fitting the first four lines together sets the stage for the rest of the poem. Although I stumbled and had to think about the meaning of some of the author’s words, the lines do make sense when compiled together. As a reader we learn that Richard Cory is a prominent figure in the community. With king-like qualities and a gentleman’s character we can create a picture of this man. Taking a moment to think about Richard Cory the first thing that comes to mind is that he is a person I would want to know. In my mind he is likeable and would make a good friend. I have never met this gentleman, in fact the only experience I have with him is the first four lines of Robinson’s poem. In my opinion, the author’s ability to create a likeable and somewhat mystical character in only four lines is incredible.

Just like the first four lines of the poem are from the voice of the townspeople, the rest of the poem continues from a similar narrative view point. The next two lines are “And he was always quietly arrayed, and he was always human when he talked.” These lines build our image of Richard Cory. While the word “array” has many definitions, I believe in this case the word is in reference to one’s personal display or dress. For the man to be “Quietly arrayed” tells us that he is nicely dressed and presents himself with pride; yet he is not boisterous in his dress. In the following line, to say Richard Cory was “Human when he talked” brings up the idea that the man is flawed even thought he may appear perfect. For me, to be human when you talk is in a way being genuine and real with the people around you. In addition, to be human is to make mistakes. This is the first point where I discovered that the king-like man may not have the completely golden character I first thought he possessed.

The next two lines are “But he still fluttered pulses when he said, ‘good-morning,’ and he glittered when he walked.” When I read this I was unsure about the point the author was trying to make. I first interpreted the two lines as Richard Cory being nervous when he would say good-morning to someone, but even with his nerves he still had a special presence about him. The interpretation really didn’t make sense in relationship to the rest of the poem, but I couldn’t get anything else out of the passage. Looking at the line a few more times the word “fluttered” stuck out to me; my first translation of fluttered to mean nervousness was too narrow. Instead I thought about how I would act and think if I “fluttered pulses” during conversation. After, I defined fluttered to mean nervousness but also a lack of confidence, insecurity, and confusion. Using this definition of fluttered I think Robinson is again enforcing the idea that Richard Cory is human and not perfect. In contrast, the part “glittered when he walked” once again helps to cover up the human characteristics of the man. To say that the man glittered could mean that people do not see past his outer appearance.

In the third stanza we continue to hear about what the onlookers think of Richard Cory, we read:

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—

And admirably schooled in every grace;

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

While the first two lines of the third stanza are similar to the previous stanza, the last two lines of this stanza are very different. In my mind the first line could have two meanings; either Richard Cory is financially rich or rich in knowledge and sprit. In the poem I believe the author is referring to the man’s monetary status. I think this is the case based on the author’s background. From the author’s short biography we learn that for a part of his life he suffered in poverty, in this case money would be an important factor in the author’s life (Gwynn).  In addition to being rich, the man is “admirably schooled”. In my mind, to be “admirably schooled” is not limited to just a good education. Richard Cory possesses fine manors and everything it would take to be seen as the gentleman he is from earlier lines. While the line could have a different meaning, I think that this line is designed to validate the characters gentleman status. In this stanza, it is the last two lines that change the poem for us; we read “In fine, we thought that he was everything. To make us wish that we were in his place.” While I was just about already certain the onlookers admired Richard Cory, these lines helps to confirm my idea. Not only did the townspeople want to know what the man was up to, they wanted to be him.

The final stanza begins with the lines “So on we worked, and waited for the light, and went without the meat, and cursed the bread.” In these lines I feel like the townspeople are aiming to be like Richard Cory. The “light” could be the different and better lifestyle the people are searching for. The second part about the meat and bread feels as if the townspeople are expressing the struggle they go through. They will put up with their current situation but still want to eventually achieve the lifestyle of Richard Cory. What the townspeople fail to recognize is that they really do not know the main character. They have seen him from a distance but have very little insight to his inner conscious. The last two lines of the poem are “And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head.” Reading this line is a shock. Here the author uses the simplest language of the entire poem; he is almost making a sort of statement to us as readers. At this point, I once again asked myself why this final line shocked me so much.

In the final line, I believe part of the shock for me is that we do not receive any additional information about Richard Cory’s death. Instead, we are left to determine what was running through his mind on our own. Did Richard Cory have a mental illness? Was their another part of his life we did not know about? Could Richard Cory actually be a real person in the author’s life? The author makes the main character out to be a vision of the perfect person. Without diving deeper into the poem Richard Cory has no flaws until we reach the final line. Once we look closer at the poem, some of the main characters flaws can be seen. Just as we needed to look closer into the poem, the townspeople would have needed to look closer at Richard Cory if they were to truly know him. I originally forgot that the entire poem is from the outside viewpoint of the “people on the pavement.” The people had no interaction with the main character except that they watched him when he came down town. Still, I took everything the townspeople had to say for fact. In reality, what did the townspeople really know about Richard Cory.

In addition to wanting to know more about Richard Cory, the other part of shock came from the relationship the author built between me as a reader and the main character. A bond was created where I wanted to see Richard Cory succeed in life. The connection Robinson creates in the first stanza between the Reader and Richard Cory is the same connection that carries through to the characters death. In a way, the author developed a story around Richard Cory’s life. I believe this story has a lesson that Robinson wants to leave with his readers. The lesson is that people are not all that they appear to be on the outside, to really know someone we must understand their inner thoughts. In the eye’s of the townspeople Richard Cory had everything, it was for this reason that they inspired to be him. If the townspeople had even the slightest insight about Richard Cory’s real life we may have been able to better predict that something was wrong, his life was not as perfect as it appeared.

In many ways I think this poem, and the lesson Robinson wants to leave us with, can apply to my life. Richard Cory could be anyone; he could be the person sitting next to you on the bus or the guy living down the hall from your dorm room. I think it is important to take the time to get to know people. If the townspeople had taken the time to get to know Richard Cory, or even to just say hello, the outcome of the poem could be much different. It is the same in our own lives; we never know when a friendly smile or a quick hello will change someone’s day. While people around us may seem perfect, they too have flaws and struggles of their own just like the rest of us. Finally, even though Robinson’s ending is very open-ended and a little frustrating since we do not know very much about Richard Cory’s death, it is a great piece that really made me think.

Works Cited

Gwynn, R.S. Poetry : A Pocket Anthology. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2006.

Robinson, Edwin Arlington. Poetry : A Pocket Anthology. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2006. 206-06.