Analysis of The Throwback
He was born far east of the Rockies
Of a pet in society's van;
A wine-soaked daughter of pleasure
Bred back and threw a man;
A man-child who grew up a stranger,
Who never could learn the way
Of a people who gauge their pleasure
On a line with the price they pay.
Just a shred of an education--
A few years of college life,
A course in the card and wine room,
A year with a chorus-girl wife,
Then disgust with a life unnatural
Spurred on with the curse of the go,
He quitted that life forever
For the land of the gold and snow.
The Lure of the Land had gripped him,
The Land where you die if you fail;
The Land of the fabled fortunes,
The Land of the endless trail.
The Land of the lonely silence,
The Land of the cruel cold,
The Land of the lost ambitions
Alaska, the Land of gold.
There winters of long hungry hardships,
Summers of pest-ridden heat;
Dicing with death for a grub stake,
Risking his life for meat.
Tossing away his young manhood,
Giving the best of his youth
To the holes that he bedrocked on wildcats,
Where gold was scarcer than truth.
Ten years spent in Alaska
Gray haired, with cheeks all atan,
Beaten, but still unconquered.
Flat broke, but still a man,
Digging and sinking and drifting,
Trying to locate the "pay,"
With each hole a fresh disappointment--
Yet hoping to strike it next day.
Scorning the letters recalling,
Forgetting the friends he had known,
Turning his back on the Outside,
Facing the future alone.
A Cabin, a Squaw, and a Fishwheel,
A bend in the river's flow,
A band of half-naked breed kids--
He stayed there, a sourdough.
Scheme | XABABCBC XDXDEFBF XGHGXIHI XJXJXKXK XAIALCXC LMXMEFXI |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111111010 101001001 01110110 110101 011111010 1101101 101011110 10110111 10111010 0111101 01001011 01101011 1011010100 11101101 1111010 10110101 01101111 01111111 01101010 0110101 01101010 0110101 01101010 0100111 110111010 1011101 10111011 101111 1001111 1001111 10111111 1111011 1110010 111111 10111 111101 10010010 101101 11101010 11011111 1010010 01001111 10111011 1001001 01001001 0100101 01111011 11101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,532 |
Words | 298 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 48 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 203 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 49 |
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:29 min read
- 2 Views
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"The Throwback" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/56355/the-throwback>.
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