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Nobody loses all the time - Cummings Analysis
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This is an analysis of Nobody loses all the time by Cummings.
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Nobody loses all the time - CummingsBackground
Nobody loses all the time: Analysis
- Life is about failing many times until you finally succeed
- There is a domino effect in the poem (everything affects everything else)
- BUT: The failed veg farm was good for the chickens
The failed chickens was good for the skunks
The failed life of Uncle Sol was good for the worms
Thus - one person’s failure = another’s success
- Sol suffers emotional conflict
- Initially he is cheerful and adaptable (he experiences losses but adapts and
tries new adventures
- He is stuck in the mindset that he will never succeed and eventually he kills
himself
Title:
- The title is ironic as Sol only unintentionally succeeds after his death, which
is often considered your greatest failure.
nobody loses all the time
i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle
Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added
, my Uncle Sol’s farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when
my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner
or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scruptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol
and started a worm farm)
Structure:
- Free verse (life is not always organised)
- English syntax
- Misspelling of words
Theme:
- Death: recurring idea seen throughout the poem (vegetables, chickens,
skunks, uncle Sol)
Overall Tone:
- Wry
- Satirical
- Mocking
- Conversational (flows like a conversation)
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