Question

Write a poetic appreciation of the poem ‘Money’, with the help of the following points.

• About the poem/poet and the title
• The theme
• Poetic style
• The language/poetic devices used in the poem
• Special features
• Message, values, morals in the poem
• Your opinion about the poem.

Answer 1

Appreciation of the poem ‘Money’

The poem ‘Money’ is written by William H. Davies. It is a reflective poem that deals with the poet’s status as both, a rich and a poor man. Based on his own narrative, the poet has depicted a connection between money and personal happiness. The theme of the poem is the inverse relationship between money and happiness since the poet had many false friends during his times of richness, and much fewer but real friends when he has become poor. The rhyme scheme of the first four stanzas is abcb and of the last stanza is abab.
The poet has beautified the poem by employing numerous figures of speech such as Alliteration, Antithesis, Consonance, Exclamation, Inversion, Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, and Repetition. An example of Onomatopoeia from the poem is “And how their wives do hum like bees” where the word ‘hum’ denotes the sound made by the wives as they constantly talk about their husbands working from morning till night. Among the special features of the poem, imagery and enjambment are more prominent. The use of imagery can be seen in the phrases “came knocking all day at my door”, “...a child that holds a trumpet that he must not blow”, “...and seen how poor men’s hearts are light”, “wives hum like bees”, “hear poor ones laugh”, “see rich ones coldly frown”, “go up” and “come down”. Each line of the poem runs into the next line, thus making enjambment a key feature of the poem. The poet follows a simple, narrative style to convey his thoughts. Through this poem, the poet is trying to spread the message that wealth is not required to be truly happy. In fact, happiness lies in having genuine people in life, which makes the poor man truly wealthy; as he might not have monetary wealth or a lot of people in his life, but the ones he does have are true to him, thus making him wealthy in the true sense. In my opinion, the poem aptly describes the allure of money, which often draws a lot of fake people in one’s life. It is only when one is poor does one realize the meaning of true happiness, because that is when one finds out who actually are his/her real friends.