Political Science

In the short poem  Soup  by Carl Sandburg, the poet uses the simple and universal image of a sole man enjoying bowl of soup to convey the basic and inherent quality of all men. Though famous, the man is vulnerable to the same desires and necessities of a poor man. While Sandburg purposely identifies the man as famous and therefore separate from the ordinary man, there is nothing in his actions to distinguish the level of social inequality between this man and the impoverished and unemployed worker bent over his free meal in the soup kitchen. Instead, as Sandburg illustrates in his own distinguishing language, it is society and man himself who has built a wall between the classes.

The poem begins with the image of soup as representative of basic survival,  I saw a famous man eating soup. I say he lifted a fat broth Into his mouth with a spoon  (ll.1-3). The use of this image of soup as a common principle that can be applied across the spectrum of class, is important to the overall tone and message of the poem. It can be seen as a generic term for nutritional sustenance, a need that is shared by all men. On the other hand it can also be seen as representative of the working and lower-classes, who more often than their wealthy brethren may find themselves facing the line at the soup kitchen. The term soup kitchen itself is synonymous with the economic inequality of American society, where some men dine on a single meal costing hundreds of dollars while still another must make the choice between starvation and charity.

It seems likely that the use of soup carries both connotations, equality and social division, illustrating how a single image can carry dual meanings. The spoonful of broth the man lifts to his mouth, is not a watered down gruel or a culmination of the necessary frugality of a family trying to stretch meager wages into a livable budget. Even the famous mans soup is distinguished as  fat broth,  which indicates more than food for nutritions sake. This is a soup, that like the man, is an inflated concept of itself.

The man, aside from the description by Sandburg as being famous, is simply a man. There is little else to distinguish him from his poorer brethren who struggle for their bowls of not-so fat broth. This is an important component of the poem, as the signs that would otherwise  be used to read the social status of another such as outward signs of wealth and prestige in the form of his person are all but absent. We are never told why he is famous only that  His name was in the newspapers that day Spelled out in tall black headlines And thousand of people were talking about him  (ll.4-6). Despite this fame, there is an air of relation between this lone man and the masses of people who take to the streets every to live their lives. Like him, they go through the minor but integral motions of living. In the man, Sandburg recognizes the kindred nature of human survival that are part of the day-to-day lives of men and woman across the social hierarchy,  When I saw him,He sat bending his head over a platePutting soup in his mouth with a spoon  (ll.7-9).

By using the simple act of eating as a symbol for the basic survival behaviors of man, Sandburg illustrates the common nature of this survival instinct which has nothing to do with wealth, politics, or social equality. Instead, Sandburgs poem is representative of how the nature of man is to be equal, in dividing themselves along social and economic boundaries man has, ultimately, denied his own nature.