A Train of Thought on William Carlos Williams's Poem
"The Red Wheelbarrow"

SAMPLE TRAIN OF THOUGHT

The Situation: A student must interpret the following poem by William Carlos Williams:


The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

 

The Student's Train of Thought:

 

What does William Carlos Williams try to say in his

"The Red Wheelbarrow"?

Nothing, if you ask me. It's just description, a nice picture---                         

wheelbarrow, just after a rain,

there's no one around (did the people living there take shelter from the rain?

is that why they're nowhere in sight?)

no, no one living but some white chickens.

Actually, the more I think of it, the nicer, more pleasing, this picture becomes.

And isn't that enough---

to please a reader by description?

A writer doesn't always have to be "saying" something.

Let me look at the poem again,

in case I missed something first time through.                                                    

"so much depends"

"depends"---

What the hell am I supposed to do with "depends"?

"depends upon"=can't do without. Right?

What can't do without that wheelbarrow? The picture, I suppose---

Without that wheelbarrow, the picture would be different---just white chickens!

I can see already that this is more than a case of description.

When I describe, I-I-

Well, just paint the scene as I see it

and leave it at that,

the way I used to report on sports for the high school paper:

"With two minutes left to play,

the Rockville squad broke from its huddle

in a brisk round of claps

(though maybe even that wasn't just describing,

since I wanted to do more than describe­--

I wanted to get my reader excited)

Anyhow, "depends" means there's definitely more than describing going on.

It's as if I'd said,

"The game depended on Jones"­

which is a matter of opinion.

But wait­--

Is "depends" in Williams' poem a matter of opinion?

No, the picture does depend on that wheelbarrow.

Without it, the picture would change­--

that's indisputable.

No, I still think "depends" makes the poem more than just description,

but I haven't put the point precisely.

It makes it more than just description, but that's not because "depending" is a matter of opinion

(I mean, as Williams uses it).

No, "depends" makes it more than description because---

Because it can't be seen?

You can see a wheelbarrow standing,

and you can see white chickens

(milling about or doing whatever they're doing),

but you can't see whatever it is that depends doing its depending.

Just as you can see my poor roommate waking me up at 8 (so that I don't miss French)

but you can't see me depending on him to wake me­

even though I do!

This is becoming heady and mildly confusing.

To what point have I gotten so far?

Williams isn't just describing,

he's telling us something.

"depends" would seem to be the key.

"depends upon"=can't do without.

 

And what did I say was the thing that couldn't do without the wheelbarrow?

Ah yes---Williams' picture as a whole.

Do I hear other possibilities?

Williams says "so much"--"so much depends."

Well, but that would make sense.

The picture was not just a picture,

it was a beautiful picture­--

the beauty would be gone

without that red wheelbarrow.

That's worth a "so much" any day

(especially from your sensitive types, like poets like Williams,

who always go on about beauty).

 

Intermission: Who should now pay our thinker a visit but Kathy, an acquaintance from class, wanting to borrow his lecture notes. Never one to refuse an infusion of fresh ideas, he shows her the poem and asks her to say what she thinks "depends" means. As luck would have it, Williams' poem was discussed at length one day in Kathy's eleventh grade English class, and she has an answer for him–her teacher's answer, which Kathy accepts as correct. Kathy soon leaves, and the student resumes his train of thought.

Hell! How stupid of me!
Kathy's teacher is right.
Of course,
what depends on a wheelbarrow is the job of taking things from one place to another!
Williams assumes everyone knows that!
(And I do know. I've played with toy wheelbarrows in my time. I know what they're for.)
Why, I wonder, didn't the obvious answer occur to me?
Maybe I think poetry is never supposed to be obvious.

But no, hold on---the more I think about it, there was more to it than that.

 Look at the lines again:

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white chickens.

Whatever the job is that he has in mind, Williams makes it sound as if it couldn't be done by just any wheelbarrow:
What it depends on is a wheelbarrow that's red
and "glazed with rain water beside the white chickens."
If I'm a farmer and I need to move some chicken feed,
I don't say that I need a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water etc.
I say I need a wheelbarrow!
I swear, I read this poem better on my own, without Kathy and her teacher.
Still, I suppose it could be read as they read it.
It could, I suppose, mean:
So much depends on a red wheelbarrow that happens at the moment to be glazed with rain water.
Just as people say,
"So much depends on a man
who has had no experience in foreign affairs."
They mean:
So much depends on a man who, as it happens, has had no experience.
That is, the same "so much" would depend on him in any case, though it happens he is inexperienced.
This poem is driving me crazy!

 

How the story ends: The student rests from his labors for a day, then rereads his train of thought and lists the possible interpretations of Williams' poem which he has come up with. Once again writing as he thinks, he considers each interpretation again. ("They are all plausible," he writes. "But which is most plausible?"). Despairing, he decides to count up the number of syllables in each line and ponder line breaks–thinking that in so doing he might turn up some further clue as to which reading is best. However, he turns up no such clue. Finally, the possibility occurs to him that Williams means to make two or more statements at the same time. The student eventually sees that a particular pair of meanings makes better sense as a reading than does any other combination of meanings or any one meaning taken alone. He settles for that pair, but he is neither perfectly satisfied with it nor altogether convinced that a poet should mean two things at once.

 

"The Red Wheelbarrow" by Williams Carlos Williams is from his Collected Poems: 1909-1939, Volume I, copyright ©1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp. It is reprinted here by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.