Howl Madness Quotes
How we cite our quotes: (line)
Quote #1
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked (line 1)
You might have heard of the church expression, "to testify." Here Ginsberg is testifying – as in, he presents himself as a witness and bystander. But after we've read more of the poem, we wonder if the speaker isn't one of these "best minds." His syntax is jumbled and disjointed, as in the last three words, "starving hysterical naked," which sound like a person making mental associations rather than a logical argument.
Quote #2
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall (line 8)
This line expresses paranoia and hysteria. They are cramped up in a tiny room, and they imagine they hear something called "the Terror" on the other side of the wall. They perform irrational actions like burning their money.
Quote #3
who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz (line 63)
What does it mean to "crash through" one's mind? Sounds like someone falling through a roof? Is there anything on the other side of the mind? Could it be a good thing? "Golden heads," for example, could remind you of an angel's halo.
Quote #4
who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury,
who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy,
and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia,
who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,
returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East,
Pilgrim State's Rockland's and Greystone's foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,
with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4. A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination (lines 65-71)
These lines are the most detailed discussion of mental illness in the first section. They tell a story of people are declared insane, who demand an operation called a "lobotomy" in which a part of the brain is removed, and who instead get sent to a mental hospital where they receive a variety of other treatments, from the very tame (pingpong) to the very serious (electricity). The passage culminates in a cryptic reference to Ginsberg's mother, who suffered from mental illness.
Quote #5
ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you're really in the total animal soup of time (line 72)
This expression of comradeship with Carl Solomon marks a turning point in the first section and looks forward to the third section, which is addressed directly to Solomon. They have lost their connection to normal time, which now seems like an "animal soup," which sounds a lot like "primordial soup," a term used to describe the origins of life on earth. Also, Howl itself sounds like a "soup" of contrasting images.
Quote #6
What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? (line 79)
The speaker believes that someone or something else must be responsible such a dramatic collapse of the sanity of his friends. He blames a machine-like creature made from "cement and aluminum," which violently invades their minds.
Quote #7
I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother (lines 97-98)
A "shade" is a ghost or spirit. Ginsberg's mother had died at this point, but the speaker sees in eerie connection between his mother and Solomon. For the speaker, it's a distressing case of history repeating itself.
Quote #8
I'm with you in Rockland where you scream in a straightjacket that you're losing the game of the actual pingpong of the abyss
I'm with you in Rockland where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse
I'm with you in Rockland where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void
I'm with you in Rockland where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha (lines 104-107)
Although Solomon and Ginsberg both spent time at a psychiatric hospital together, these lines give the impression that Solomon was much more unstable than Ginsberg. Nonetheless, the speaker thinks that his friend doesn't belong in a "madhouse" in part because it resembles a prison or military facility, which is "armed." Solomon thinks of himself as a political dissident.
Quote #9
I'm with you in Rockland where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night (lines 131-134)
Is Solomon in a "coma," or is this word just a metaphor? At any rate, the poem ends with the image of the patient breaking out of the hospital like the members of some renegade army with "skinny legions" of soldiers. Also, the speaker never loses his sense of humor and helpfully points out that the prisoners aren't wearing any underwear.