Here is your short summary of Five A.M. by Allen Ginsberg:
The restlessness of early morning is felt in Gilbert’s thoughts in this poem. The poem captures a state of timelessness and something eternal. The feeling that is intermediate to sleep and being awake is being talked about in the first few lines.
Gilbert somewhere mocks on the reality of modern religion. The religion has somewhere made people guilty such that they find themselves bound to the beliefs that religion imposes. The guilt power is so intriguing that it keeps one from sleeping. The limitations imposed by religion never let people step out and see the reality.
“Guilt power, that makes the heart beat wake all night” is used to refer to the uneasiness that takes over one’s peace of mind and does not let it come to rest. The dont’s of the religion make life so controlled and restricted for everyone such that they are always guilt-ridden. The guilt becomes more apparent as poet talks about the mind which travels into future times and sometimes its journey steps back into the ancient times of birth cave of Jesus.
Image Source: clocktower.org
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Such an existence is more transient between the past and future such that present seems like the future of something past in which the poet believes himself to be living. As each moment passes, the present uncovers itself. A simultaneous mode of existence becomes incumbent in reader’s mind.
The reference of coffee, alcohol, cocaine, mushrooms; marijuana, laughing gas etc. are used by the poet to voice the habits and daily routines of ordinary people. It gives the reader a sense of liveliness in the atmosphere through the delicacies that a common person’s mind enjoys. The poet is actually seeking the true meaning of life for an ordinary man who is not able to feel the lightness of this beautiful life and wanders helpless unable to seek the ultimate peace of mind.
It is the success of the poet as he takes the reader through the endless space and time traversing from past into the future by giving a new direction to the early morning’s thoughts. He has contrasted the above said symbols like cocaine, laughing gas to the Buddhism which is far from the artificial world and takes an individual to a journey of self-realization. The metamorphic travel through the space is indeed symbolic of the person’s introspection and journey of his own soul which can bring him close to God.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The religion becomes imposing as people forget the real meaning of the means and the products and use them to escape the truth of life as they are unable to understand and cope up with life’s true nature. Gilbert has tried to make his own thoughts become reader’s perspective on an early morning 5AM and get out of the bounds of guilt inducing religion which serves no purpose than making people even more restless.