Allen Ginsberg’s poem: First Party at Ken Kesey’s with Hell’s Angels 2)Robert Frost’s poem: Acquainted with the Night 3)Clint Eastwood’s movie: Bird, based on Charlie Parker’s life There are many different elements in the 3 literary pieces above but in all there are similarities. For instance, there seems to be a pervading dismal and dark element throughout all the pieces. In Ginsberg’s poem, he mentions “tired souls hunched over”.He chose the word ‘soul’ as opposed to using other terms like ‘body’ or ‘people’ and the term ‘soul’ commonly conveys a persons essence or spirit, especially after death.
So he uses this term to permeate the poem with an element or feeling of something dark and bleak analogous to death. In Robert Frost’s poem, the title of the poem is repeated in the first and last line as if to highlight or emphasize the “acquaintance with the night” theme.Both in literature and in general the night is associated with literal darkness and figurative darkness both of which convey a bleak time where goodness is absent but bleakness looms and the ultimate manifestation of figurative darkness is death so here again we see this aspect of gloom or despair. Dark nights are also known to introduce a time where depraved or illicit acts can be carried out, things that are normally hidden and/or unapproved by normal society like robbery or sexual acts so this dark element is infused within Frost’s poem as well.In Clint Eastwood’s movie, Bird, the protagonist, Charlie “Bird” Parker’s life is perpetually plagued by his drug and alcohol addiction so right away we get a sense of doom or disaster in this movie.
Of course if Parker doesn’t stop his drug addiction, it will most likely be detrimental to his marriage (which was already on the rocks), his family life, his finances, his career and ultimately his life. Throughout the story the dark, ominous element reverberates as other “demons” or hardships of demonic element that plague Charlie are incorporated into the story.For instance, he is in an inter-racial marriage at a time when that could’ve gotten him killed by the opposing society, he also has an ulcer that worsened with the drug and alcohol addiction (and could probably have developed from his poor health lifestyle) and he is also a black man in America and at the time that was a great challenge in itself due to all the repressions against blacks during Parker’s era. So throughout these three pieces we see the great black, bleak elements of troubled life and ill fate.
