Richard Cory

BY EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON (1897)

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

PLOT

“Richard Cory,” which first appeared in The Children of the night and remains one of Robinson’s most popular poems, recalls the economic depression of 1893. At that time, people could not afford meat and had a diet mainly of bread, often day-old bread selling for less than freshly baked goods. This hard-times experience made the townspeople even more aware of Richard’s difference from them, so much so that they treated him as royalty.

Although the people were surprised that Richard came to town dressed “quietly” and that he was “always human when he talked” (that is, he did not act superior), they nonetheless distanced themselves from him. This distance is suggested by the narrator’s words “crown,” “imperially,” “grace,” “fluttered pulses,” and “glittered.” The townspeople never stopped to consider why Richard dressed and spoke the way he did, why he came to town when everyone else was there, or even why he tried to make contact with them by saying “good morning.”

Richard was wealthy, but (as his name hints) he was not rich at the life-core of himself. Despite his efforts at communal connection, Richard’s wealth isolated him from others. He was alone. If the townspeople wished they were in his place because of his wealth, he in turn wished he were one of them because they were rich in one another’s company. The townspeople failed to appreciate the value of their mutual support of one another, their nurturing communal togetherness. So one hot, breezeless summer night (before the availability of electric fans or air conditioners), Richard lay awake, unable to sleep or to stop painful thoughts. Depressingly lonely, he ended his friendless life. The poem’s reader is supposed to understand what the townspeople did not understand about Richard’s suicide: that there was a price, in a human rather than in a monetary sense, that he paid for being perceived to be “richer than a king.”

THEME

The narrator describes Richard Cory as a person who had every possible advantage, and who appeared to have been groomed and trained as a man of privilege. Cory's wealth sets him apart from the townspeople, who look at him as though he is a different sort of creature and perhaps not entirely human. It is the wealth, and people's awareness of the wealth, that alienates Cory from the narrator and the other people in the story.

Cory does not live downtown, but he sometimes goes there. When he does, he doesn't go out of his way to attract attention by dressing lavishly or acting like a caricature. Yet people treat him differently than they treat one another. Their awareness of his wealth causes pulses to flutter when he wishes them a good morning, and everything about him comes across as refined, schooled, polished, and perhaps not entirely real. The fact Cory is described as being "human" when he talks indicates that the narrator finds it surprising, because it seems to the narrator to not quite be what he or she expects.

Cory's wealth causes him to be envied by the "we" represented by the narrator. The "people on the pavement" are going without meat, dissatisfied with the bread, and unhappy with their lot in life. Many wish they could trade places with him, yet nobody seems to take the time to get to know him. Cory's wealth, and everybody's awareness of it, appears to create a barrier between him and other people.

The narrator does not mention that Richard Cory had any friends, peers, or family of his own socioeconomic class, so there is a chance that he had none. If so, his alienation from the other people in the town could have been a contributing factor in his eventual suicide.

MEANING

The name Richard Cory appears to allude to England’s King Richard I (born, 1157; died, 1199). Here’s why: Richard I, a descendant of the French Normans who conquered England in 1066, earned the byname Richard Coeur de Lion (Richard the Lion-Hearted) for his valiant fighting in the Crusades. Arlington chose Richard Cory as the name of the character in his poem for two reasons:

(1) because Richard Cory has kingly characteristics

(2) because the name resembles the first two words of King Richard I’s French byname, Richard Coeur–hence, Richard Coeury, or Cory. That Richard Cory has the characteristics of a king is subtly hinted at in the poem. For example, in line 3,  we learn that Cory is a “gentleman from sole to crown." Here, crown not only refers to the top of his head but also to a crown worn by a king. In line 4, we learn that Cory is “imperially slim." The word imperially means “having the qualities of a sovereign ruler." We also discover that Richard Cory “glittered" (line 8), that he was “richer than a king" (line 9), and that he was “admirably schooled in every grace" (line 10). Finally, we have a hint that Richard Cory is being compared to an Englishman because of the use of the word pavement in line 2. Pavement is a British term for sidewalk.

OPINION

   I designed to pick Richard Cory to be my favorite poem because when I back to read it many and many time it makes me realize that “life nothing is certain.”and this poem expresses the difference between what person seems to be by external appearance and what he feels about himself inside his heart Richard Cory seem to be the perfect man happy polite immensely rich, friendly well dresses  mannered,bright and cheerful- ; he's the man that everyone want to be but he harbors some dark secret in his heart (maybe secret gayness) which he cannot share with others

    Back to people life everything is their life's not perfect ,So that mean “perfect don't have in the world” even though people have money, beautiful house or have a lot of friend but the true thing that is not their happiness for sure. In real life the thing that make you to want to wake up in the morning to do something good is not money and beautiful house but it is passionate and I realize that all of human want is inspiration.When they fail with something that they faced they just want someone to listen and understand the reason that they stand there

   Because Human is Human they have heart, soul, and all of them want someone to understand their points just only one. So  for me I really understand him but let’s think that he is your important one to you. You will listen to him or let him die if you know in the world no one perfect.