For the Union Dead and Against the Cheapening of American History

For the Union Dead and Against the Cheapening of American History

After the American Civil War, monuments rose to represent the important moments in history that were meant to memorialize these marks in history. Whether these moments represented the right ideals, depends on the memorial and who is viewing it. This is especially relevant to today’s history as we continue to reevaluate past memorials that represent morally wrong values or ideals that people are beginning to realize have transcended the past and continue to be instilled in the minds of some today. Robert Lowell tackles how he views a specific memorial in Boston in his poem, “For the Union Dead.” In this poem, Robert Lowell views the monument of Colonel Shaw as someone who represents the right ideals of the Civil War era, and in contrast as America continues to industrialize, he thinks that we have cheapened the memorialization of the ideals and values we should have gotten from World War II.

Throughout this poem, Lowell makes stark contrasts between the present-day city of Boston and ideals of the past like Colonel Shaw. John C. Hirsch argues that Colonel Shaw “might be ‘as lean as a compass needle,’ but the direction he indicates is death” (Hirsch). Although these soldiers die in their quest, a compass is meant to represent pointing a person in the right direction, which is what Lowell is saying about Shaw. Lowell makes it clear of the ironic placement of the “yellow dinosaur steamshovels…[gouging] their underworld garage” “shaking [the] Civil War relief” of “Colonel Shaw and his bell checked Negro infantry” (Lowell). This monument is directly different from that of the obvious picture of commercialization that the building of the parking garage represents. Colonel Shaw “is as lean as a compass-needle,” but the building of the parking garage is described in harsh language like the “grunting” of the steamshovels as the “gouge” up the ground (Lowell). Shaw leads in the right direction with the right ideals, but Lowell describes the modern-day Boston in harsh language to portray his disgust for what the city is beginning to outwardly represent as their ideals. Lowell is not representing a morally ambiguous soldier from the Civil War era like Hirsch describes, but instead uses the ironic placement of the monument to that of the commercialization in Boston to further his argument that Shaw represents the right ideals compared to how the modern-day society has managed to cheapen history.

Colonel Shaw leads his soldiers to death, but in context with the war and how he chooses to be buried with them in a ditch, Colonel Shaw felt that he had no other choice to make. When Colonel Shaw “leads his black soldiers to death, he cannot bend his back” (Lowell). Hirsch argues that these lines might “suggest [a longing] for the Colonel’s release,” but “they do not glorify Shaw himself” (Hirsch). Hirsch makes this argument that Colonel Shaw makes this choice for “half the regiment” and it is a selfish decision, but the fact that the Colonel “cannot bend his back” suggests that he had no choice, but to lead his soldiers to death (Lowell). Within the context of the war, soldiers go through severely life-threatening situations to fight for their ideals. In this case, Colonel Shaw lead an infantry of African American soldiers to fight for the Union. Although this does not mean that racism was not prevalent within the union as well, Shaw very well could have led them to fight to the death for their freedom against slavery. So, although Shaw makes the choice for his army to die, Lowell suggests that he had no choice and within historical context, he may have made this decision in light of fighting for morally good ideals. These lines are meant to glorify Shaw because Shaw’s “body was thrown and lost with his” soldiers (Lowell). Shaw led his soldiers to death, but also died with them, his body was even buried with the men that he led. Lowell makes direct placement of this stanza to glorify Shaw in that he stuck to his ideals and fought tenaciously for them so that the death of his soldiers was not in vain. Lowell would not place a morally ambiguous character in his poem to further his argument that America has become focused on the cheapening of history, that would make no sense.

The end of the poem stands to represent that Colonel Shaw is a part of the values that Lowell sees are slipping away within American society. Hirsch views “the bubbles in the Aquarium” and the bubble that Colonel Shaw rides on as a miscommunication “of love which Colonel Shaw despised” (Hirsch). The idea that Lowell is trying to get across is not that Colonel Shaw despises love, but that he is dedicated to the right ideals. These ideals are slipping away and the narrator compares them to the bubbles he saw in the aquarium as a child and realizes that they continue to rise and wait “for the blessed break” (Lowell). This break being when America will see these memorials and history for what they truly are. Lowell also compares the forgotten Civil War history, to that of “a commercial photograph [that] shows Hiroshima boiling over a Moser Safe, the ‘Rock of Ages’” (Lowell). Lowell successfully compares the old order of Shaw to that of the new order, which he defines as the fragmented ideals of post-World War II American society. This society has majorly cheapened American history and major historical events from World War II by memorializing them through commercialization and capitalism. He even describes Colonel Shaw as “out of bounds now” in this new world (Lowell). Lowell directly states that the monument of Colonel Shaw is seemingly out of place when immersed in the new world. In the new order, “giant finned cars nose forward like fish; a savage servility slides by on grease” (Lowell). He again uses harsh language to describe the new world, comparing the new technology and capitalization of the society to turning us into savage animals, like the Aquarium from his childhood. The main purpose of the ending of the poem and the imagery of the bubbles is not to represent the love that society lacks and Colonel Shaw despised, but to draw a contrast between the fragmentation old world and the new world and how society continues to poorly represent and remember important aspects of American history.

Hirsch makes the argument that Colonel Shaw is a morally ambiguous character and does not represent romanticized versions of history, but Lowell would not use a cheap character to represent his disgust for the cheap society America has turned to. Lowell does not romanticize horrible pasts of America, but uses these pasts to draw a direct comparison of how America continues to cheapen history and lessons that we can learn from these histories. Lowell suggests that the new world severely misses the mark of what values and ideals our country should uphold because of how industrialization and commercialization have become not only the focal point of America, but also its core ideals.

Annotated Bibliography

Hirsch, John C. “The Imagery of Dedication in Robert Lowell's 'For the Union Dead'.” Journal of

American Studies, vol. 6, no. 2, 1981, pp. 201-205.

John C. Hirsch uses this Academic Journal to use the imagery of Robert Lowell’s “For the Union Dead” to argue that Lowell is not using Colonel Shaw as a form of American her and representing good moral values, but instead as a representative of the corrupted civic order that now takes place in Boston. He argues that Colonel Shaw is a morally ambiguous character despite how he comes off heroic. He argues that neither Colonel Shaw nor the narrator are right or heroic. He also argues that Colonel Shaw is responsible to some degree for what the city of Boston has turned into, which is inspired by fear and isolation.

Schneiderman, Josh. “'Pilgrim's Blues': Puritan Anxiety in Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead.”

Journal of Modern Literature, 2008, pp. 58-80.

In this article, Josh Schneiderman argues that Robert Lowell’s poem, “For the Union Dead” heavily evicts Puritan anxieties that can be connected to the post-World War II culture or the American Cold War Culture. Schneiderman argues that Lowell suggests the Puritans assimilation into the new world order has caused their desire for Salvation to have been twisted and turned into capitalization or a pursuit of materialistic wealth. This in turn has caused nuclear tension that stems from the American Cold War culture. Schneiderman considers how Lowell might have used this poem to claim that America is being turned into a capitalist society in pursuit of salvation.

Axelrod, Steven. Colonel Shaw in American Poetry: 'For the Union Dead' and Its Precursors.

American Quarterly, 2018, pp. 523-37.

Steven Axelrod uses James Russell Lowell's 'Memoriae Positum, Robert Gould Shaw' (1863), Moody's 'Ode in time of Hesitation' (1900), Berryman's 'Boston Common' (1942), and Robert Lowell's 'For the Union Dead' (1960) to describe how Colonel Robert Shaw instills a tradition in American Poetry. He argues that they all represent the evolving moral progress within America and how devotion to duty has also evolved within America. He describes Robert Lowell’s poems as full of total despair.