Personification
"Chicago" is filled to the brim with personification. By the end of the poem, Chicago seems to be way more like a man than like a city. It has shoulders, a heart, a pulse, and it laughs (and laughs...
Tough-Guy Imagery
We've already established that "Chicago" is filled with personification, but let's get a bit more specific. This poem is filled with tough-guy, macho imagery. Chicago is no city for dainty folks or...
Industrial Imagery
The Chicago of "Chicago" is a hustling, bustling, building, breaking, rebuilding kind of place. The city is being built, torn down, and rebuilt as we read it. It's a crazy place of freight trains,...