Cruelty and Splendour are by products of fame and money ( Excess of American Dream) - Book Report/Review Example

First for which the paper is being written   Cruelty and Splendour are by products of fame and money   James Merril’s “The Broken Home”, is a clear reflection of that which is called the dramatic American Society. Though this poem is actually an autobiographical reflections, it brings forth the ironic distance between parents and children, when they realize that the umbilical cord was finally broken and rather cruelly. It speaks of the orientation of parents wherein their own money and sexual appetite seems more important that the child.

The poem does reflect the personal biography of the Merril’s parents’ much publicized divorce which he has used to cite as a mirror for the social acts in the Society. The literal reference to the cruelty and splendour is in the 7th line of the Sonnet-“My Father, who had flown in World War I, Might have continued to invest his life In clouds banks well above Wall Street and wife”. The perils of which had to be face by the poet himself, the perils as it seems of glory and money that were to be a part of the life of his father until his death, as it is mentioned in the following line of the poem,”Each thirteenth year he married.

When he died there were already several chilled wives. The poem stands for the reflection of the American society that epitomizes broken homes, the poem brings out a stark contrast in the beginning of the poem by describing a house with parents and children, living in harmony; unlike his own home. The perils and the social mores, according to the poem is basically due to the attitudinal problems that parents have towards their own children. This poem is not only a personal account of the poet’s own apathy, but also the sufferings of the childhoods of so many who are subjected to pain and distress due to irreparable situations at home.

       References: James Merrill, “The Broken Home” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2001 by James Merrill.