Explication Of Richard Cory

The poem “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson is a poem about a rich man that is the talk of the town but for some reason takes his life. The speakers of this poem comes from the standpoint of the middle class people of the city that look up to Cory and idol him. This plays a major role in how irony in the poem plays a major role by teaching a lesson to the reader that you cannot judge a book by its cover. The first stanza of the poem introduces Richard Cory as a gentleman and a king “He was a gentleman from sole to crown,” (Robinson 3). This tells the reader that Cory is someone that is upped upon by his community. But then the speakers make an observation about Cory about his appearance “Clean favored, and imperially slim” (4).

The speakers see Cory as someone who is reserved when he talks and will not speak to low life’s like them. But unlike other rich people of the time Cory does not have these kinds of attributes; instead he is calm and would speak first to people on the street. He was also nice to people when he would talk to them. But the line that advocates that something is off about Cory is “But still he fluttered pulses when he said,/‘Good-morning,’(6-7). This suggested that he was nervous when he talked to people because maybe he was scared of people judging him, which is what the whole premise of this poem talks

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. (9-12).

In this part of the poem the speakers speak about how they wish to become him and have everything that he has. It is ironic how Robinson words this stanza as Cory being seen as something like a god that the townspeople idol and praise to become, because Cory does not act like this to people. In fact he acts just like any other person and acts like he is not rich and is just another person of the crowd. Unfortunately, the people of the community that he lives in have given Richard Cory this sense of idol ship that he does not want. In the last stanza on this poem the irony of Richard Cory’s life comes full circle.

“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.”