Point of View

The poem begins in the first person plural point of view. For the first eight lines, the speaker solely uses the we/us pronouns in order to refer to both themselves and society as a whole. This societal perspective evokes a specifically modern industrialized society. In the ninth line of the poem, the speaker introduces the first person singular pronoun, and from this point onward the text shifts into the first person singular point of view. In the subsequent lines, the singular pronoun is used to refer to the speaker specifically, as they detach themselves from the social whole. Thus, while this speaker views themselves as a member of society, as evidenced by the first person plural point of view utilized in the first half of the poem, they also view themselves as an individual who seeks to break free from societal conventions.

The overall...