The Red

Wheelbarrow
Study Guide by Course Hero

ABOUT THE TITLE

What's Inside The subject of the poem is a red wheelbarrow. The poem was
originally untitled and referred to as XXII (number 22) when it
was first published in Williams's collection Spring and All. Over
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1 time the poem has come to be called "The Red Wheelbarrow."

d In Context ..................................................................................................... 1

a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 3

d In Context
k Plot Summary ............................................................................................. 4

c Plot Analysis ............................................................................................... 5

Free Verse Poetry
g Quotes ........................................................................................................... 6
Free verse poetry is poetry composed without a regular meter,
l Symbols ........................................................................................................ 6
or pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Instead, it
m Themes ......................................................................................................... 6 attempts to capture the naturally irregular rhythm of human
speech. Free verse poets rejected the idea of imposing strict
b Narrative Voice .......................................................................................... 7 forms on poetry. American poet Ezra Pound (1885–1972) was
deeply influenced by free verse and wrote that poets should
"compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in
sequence of a metronome."
j Book Basics
The term free verse is a translation of the French vers libre, a
poetic movement that began in 1880s France and became
AUTHOR
popular during the development of the impressionist movement
William Carlos Williams
in painting and music. Both movements sought to liberate art
YEAR PUBLISHED from rigid standards of form and notions of what is acceptable
1923 in artistic expression. Widespread use of vers libre in late 19th-
century France influenced poets in other countries as well.
GENRE Irregular meter became common in modern poetry in Europe
Nature and North America.

PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR Some of the first English-language poets to incorporate free
Because of the poem's brevity, the reader does not know the verse into their writing include Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington
speaker or the perspective, though based on later statements (1892–1962), T.E. Hulme (1883–1917), F.S. Flint (1885–1960),
by Williams, it is likely that the perspective is his own. and T.S. Elliot (1888–1965). William Carlos Williams's poetry,
however, more closely resembles the work of the French vers
TENSE
libre poets. His use of free verse influenced later poets,
"The Red Wheelbarrow" is written in the present tense.
including Allen Ginsberg (1926–97), a significant contributor to
The Red Wheelbarrow Study Guide
the Beat movement who also rejected formalism.
Free verse poetry is not expected to fit into a preexisting
pattern. Line length, rhythm, and rhyme can be adapted as
necessary to match the subject matter. The short lines of "The
Red Wheelbarrow" present the wheelbarrow to the reader as
the speaker sees it. Readers pause with the speaker as the
picture of the wheelbarrow takes form. First the speaker
observes the striking red of the wheelbarrow, perhaps barely
visible through the rain. This moves the speaker to consider
the wheelbarrow's importance—how so much depends upon it.
As the rain gradually subsides and the sunlight peeks through
the clouds, the rainwater sparkles, taking on the appearance of
a glaze. Finally, the speaker notes the chickens, which have
come out of hiding.
Thaddeus Marshall
Thaddeus Marshall (1852–1930), an African American street
vendor from Rutherford, New Jersey, was identified as the
owner of the red wheelbarrow depicted in William Carlos
Williams's poem. William Logan, an English professor at the
University of Florida, made the connection by following a series
of clues.
Logan located a quote from Williams in a 1933 anthology in
which he stated that the wheelbarrow had belonged to an
elderly African American man he'd known in Rutherford. In a
magazine essay written 20 years later, Williams identified that
man's last name and the name of his son. Through some
determined sleuthing, Logan was able to deduce that the man
was Thaddeus Marshall. Marshall had lived about nine blocks
from Williams in a neighborhood where Williams, a doctor,
made house calls. Marshall, according to Williams's
recollection, had chickens.
The 1910 census identified Marshall's occupation as "street
huckster," or street vendor, and according to family stories, he
sold eggs and vegetables. He may have used the wheelbarrow
to take his wares from place to place and peddle them. If so,
this may be the work that depended so heavily upon that red
wheelbarrow.
Williams knew Marshall mainly as a patient but remarked that
he liked the man. The poem's speaker doesn't mention the
purpose of the wheelbarrow or the profession of the
wheelbarrow's owner. Readers are free to place the poem
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In Context 2
wherever they wish and have the wheelbarrow doing whatever
work they imagine.
In 2015 a special marker was placed on Thaddeus Marshall's
grave to commemorate his contribution to Williams's famous
poem.
Imagism
Imagism is a style of poetry that was developed by Ezra Pound
(1885–1972) and several other poets, such as Hilda (H.D.)
Doolittle (1886–1961) and F.S. Flint (1885–1960), in the early
20th century. The imagist movement embraced free verse and
emphasized precision in imagery and word choice over ornate,
flowery language. Imagist poems are meant to be brief,
accurate observations of their subjects instead of sentimental
tributes. The poems should be "hard and clear—never blurred
or indefinite," according to a list of tenets a group of imagists,
including Flint and Doolittle, created and noted in the Some
Imagist Poets anthology organized by poet and author Richard
Aldington (1892–1962), published in 1916.
William Carlos Williams was one of the principal poets of the
imagist movement. "The Red Wheelbarrow" is a good example
of imagist poetry. The treatment of the wheelbarrow is direct.
The entire poem is only 16 words, only two of which are
adjectives. Using spare language, the reader is presented with
the image of the wheelbarrow, the rainwater on it, and the
chickens next to it. All the words contribute to development of
a single image. The description is not excessive. Williams
doesn't tell the reader how to feel about the wheelbarrow or
share how he feels about it. The poem is empty of metaphors
and similes. Instead, Williams describes the object and lets
readers draw their own conclusions. The only subjective
aspect of the treatment is Williams's choice of the word glazed,
which implies that Williams wanted the reader to see the
beauty in this ordinary object in this mundane scene.
The rhythm is beautiful but does not follow a prescribed form,
certainly nothing close to the iambic pentameter of older
poets. The regularity of the poem comes from the two-syllable
words at the end line of each stanza. The line breaks force the
reader to stop and take notice, holding their breath and waiting
for the resolution of the next line. This cadence is much like the
dissonance and resolution in music, which happens when the
music changes from a tense, unstable sound to a pleasing,
consonant sound that is complete and final to the ear of the
The Red Wheelbarrow Study Guide
listener.
Williams eventually began to object to the way the imagist
movement idealized European culture, and he sought to invent
a completely fresh American form. "The Red Wheelbarrow"
fulfills the aspirations of imagism while also moving toward this
new form, which focused on the experiences of ordinary
Americans.
Although the imagist movement ended by about 1918, it had a
monumental influence on modern poetry.
a Author Biography
Early Life and Education
William Carlos Williams was born on September 17, 1883, in
Rutherford, New Jersey, where he spent his childhood.
Williams's family had a great appreciation for the arts. His
Puerto Rican mother was a painter. His father, a wealthy
Englishman who had worked as a merchant in Puerto Rico,
introduced his sons to literature and music, including the works
of English playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Italian
poet Dante Alighieri (c. 1265–1321), and comic opera
collaborators W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan (Gilbert:
1836–1911; Sullivan: 1842–1900). These artistic influences took
time to come to fruition, however. When Williams entered
Horace Mann High School in New York City in 1899, he found
his main interests were in mathematics and the sciences. In
fact he intended to become a doctor, but as his education
progressed he also found an affinity for poetry. He read poetry
extensively and even tried his hand at writing prose.
Williams's love of poetry stayed with him as he entered the
University of Pennsylvania's Medical School in Philadelphia,
where he pursued a degree in pediatrics and obstetrics, the
branch of medicine concerned with delivering babies and
caring for women who are pregnant. He was introduced to
poet Ezra Pound (1885–1972) at the university, and the
friendship between the two transformed Williams. Pound's
ideas about poetry and his group of friends, which included
other poets and artists, helped shape Williams's artistic
sensibilities. Williams graduated with a medical degree in 1906.
He completed graduate work and an internship before
embarking on a successful medical career in 1910.
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Author Biography 3
Doctor and Writer
Despite his demanding medical education, Williams continued
to write throughout his university years. He published a volume
of poetry aptly named Poems in 1909. The poems lack the
concrete detail most readers and critics associate with
Williams's work. For example, the poem "Love" from this
volume begins with the following stanza: "Love is twain, it is not
single, / Gold and silver mixed to one, / Passion 'tis and pain
which mingle / Glist'ring then for aye undone."
In 1910 Williams moved back to his hometown of Rutherford
and began to practice medicine. Two years later he married a
woman named Florence Herman, with whom he had two
children, and for years he kept a busy schedule. Yet in between
delivering babies, treating sick patients, documenting deaths,
and witnessing the tragedies and triumphs of his patients' lives,
Williams continued to compose poetry. He would sometimes
jot down his poems on blank prescription notepads in between
seeing his patients. In many ways his work as a doctor had as
much influence on him as did Pound's poetic ideas. He
delivered some 3,000 babies between 1912 and 1955. Williams
would witness moments in the course of his work that would
resonate in intensity of thought and emotional immediacy. He
would "quickly write down on anything at hand, any piece of
paper," the images and ideas that would later become his
poems. His writing style became more informed by imagism, a
movement associated with modernism, which shunned older
poetic conventions and sought to create poems based on vivid
descriptions of concrete subjects. His 1913 volume, The
Tempers, shows this shift.
A Unique Style
Although Pound's influence on Williams was undeniable, in the
years after The Tempers was published, Williams's poetic style
diverged from that of his friend. While Pound's work retained a
worldly sophistication, Williams opted for a more direct
approach to language. He sought to incorporate the simple,
clear, American way of using language instead of the more
cultured tones of Europe. He took seriously the imagist
movement's aesthetic, which adhered to the rule of describing
objects as they are rather than writing about them. When the
Great Depression (1929–39), a severe global economic
downturn, caused suffering throughout the United States,
Williams's poems did not rail against the state of things. Nor did
The Red Wheelbarrow Study Guide
they explain or despair. Rather, they conveyed images with
clarity and precision. "Proletarian Portrait" (1933), a poem from
this period, gives readers the poignant image of a young
woman holding her shoe in her hand: "She pulls out the paper
insole / to find the nail / That has been hurting her."
Some of Williams's innovations were not well received by other
writers and artists of his time. Pound and poet Wallace Stevens
(1879–1955), for example, dismissed Williams's volume of
poetry and prose Kora in Hell: Improvisations (1920) as
superficial and strange. But Williams unapologetically defended
his unique voice. Further troubles arose between Williams and
his contemporaries. In particular, the publication of T.S. Eliot's
(1888–1965) poem The Waste Land (1922) widened the rift
between Williams and other poets. Eliot's poem was exactly
the sort of poem Williams believed was not the future of the art
form. Yet it became immensely popular. Williams's book Spring
and All (1923) is, in some ways, considered to be a response to
The Waste Land.
Death and Legacy
In addition to poetry, Williams published essays, short stories, a
play, and an autobiography during his long career. In 1948
Williams suffered a heart attack, followed by several strokes.
He persisted in writing poems, however, publishing Pictures
from Brueghel and Other Poems in 1962, for which he received
a posthumous Pulitzer Prize. He died on March 4, 1963.
Although Williams received mixed reviews from his
contemporaries, his poetry enjoyed a resurgence of popularity
among the poets of the Beat movement, an American literary
and social movement in the 1950s and 1960s whose poems
imitate the spontaneous rhythms found in free jazz music. Beat
poetry is also attentive to concrete details and imagery.
Williams's poetry continues to be enjoyed today as well. "The
Red Wheelbarrow" (1923), for example, is frequently
anthologized and used as a prime example of imagist poetry.
Williams's unique poetic style, attention to precise detail, and
painter's eye give him an enduring presence in American
literature.
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Plot Summary 4
k Plot Summary
Stanza 1
The first stanza doesn't give the reader a noun. Instead it
simply calls the reader's attention to what is to come by
insisting that "so much depends" on something. The stanza
ends with the word upon, a more formal word than on. It leaves
readers in suspense until the second stanza, when they find
out what so much depends upon.
Stanza 2
In Stanza 2 Williams gives readers the answer—a red
wheelbarrow, a perfectly ordinary piece of equipment for
farming, gardening, construction, or any other possible number
of uses. He says a red wheelbarrow rather than the red
wheelbarrow, making the statement general, rather than
specific. This could be any wheelbarrow, anywhere.
The word red is striking. Why red? Why not a blue
wheelbarrow? The poem presumably takes place after a
storm, as the speaker refers to rainwater. A red wheelbarrow
would stand out against a gray, stormy background and make
its presence known. It is something an observer would notice
through any lingering rain and fog, like the focal point in a
painting.
Stanza 3
The speaker describes the wheelbarrow as glazed by the
rainwater. To glaze means to cover or coat with a glaze or give
an object a glass-like finish. Glaze implies a hard shell.
Rainwater is a liquid. It's possible the speaker is analogizing the
rainwater to a hard glaze because it is slick and sparkling like
glass, presumably in the sun that has returned now that the
rain is gone. The returning sun strikes the rain-soaked
wheelbarrow, causing it to resemble something sparkling, like
glass.
The Red Wheelbarrow Study Guide
Stanza 4
In the final stanza Williams adds life to the scene. The
wheelbarrow is an inanimate object, a barnyard tool at rest.
Williams surrounds it with moving chickens, returning outside
once the rain is gone.
c Plot Analysis
Line Breaks
The line breaks in "The Red Wheelbarrow" are as important as
the words. William Carlos Williams was known for using
enjambment—the placement of line breaks in the middle of
sentences. "The Red Wheelbarrow" consists of a single
sentence running over eight line breaks and broken into four
stanzas. The first line of each stanza contains three words of
varying numbers of syllables. The second line contains a single
two-syllable word. In the first and second stanzas Williams
breaks the compound words wheelbarrow and rainwater into
two parts—wheel and barrow, rain and water—placing the
second part as a single word on the second line. Without
hyphens to show that the smaller words are parts of
compounds, Williams leaves readers hanging from one line to
the next. The effect is similar to a resolution in music, the point
at which the composition moves from a dissonant sound to the
satisfying consonant sound the listener expects.
There is no punctuation in the poem to indicate where readers
should pause. Instead, the line breaks perform this function,
causing readers to slow down instead of rushing through the
poem as if it were written in a single line of prose.
Rhythm
While the poem does not have a traditional rhythm, such as
iambic pentameter, it does have regularity. The first and fourth
stanzas have a four-syllable line and then a two-syllable line.
The second and third stanzas have a three-syllable line and
then a two-syllable line. Each stanza ends with a two-syllable
word. The poem begins and ends with the longer stanzas.
The rhythm of the poem is designed to make readers hold their
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Plot Analysis 5
breath and then release it. This is similar to the effects of the
line breaks. The broken compound words wheelbarrow and
rainwater express the rhythm of a raindrop suspended from a
branch before it falls: first a pause as the drop hangs
suspended and then a satisfying plink as it releases and comes
to a conclusion.
The Speaker
Although the speaker's identity is unknown, the reader can
infer a few things about them. The speaker describes a red
wheelbarrow rather than the red wheelbarrow. From this
choice of article, the reader may infer that this is not the
speaker's own wheelbarrow. It's just a wheelbarrow the
speaker happens to notice. The speaker may not even know
the owner of the wheelbarrow.
Whatever the task or job is that depends upon the red
wheelbarrow, it is probably not the speaker's work.
Nonetheless, the speaker is concerned about the wheelbarrow
and how much depends upon it. This gives the impression that
the speaker is sympathetic to the person who owns the
wheelbarrow. Observing the wheelbarrow through the waning
rain, the speaker sees that it is safe and, indeed, sparkling.
An Unknown Setting
While the single sentence creates a powerful image of the
wheelbarrow, Williams does not reveal the broader setting. Is
this wheelbarrow sitting on a patch of grass or a slab of
concrete? Are there amber waves of grain in the background
or apartment buildings? Wheelbarrows can be used in all sorts
of work. Whether to haul pipes or stones or plants, so many
different tasks can depend on a red wheelbarrow. The
chickens seem to set the poem in a rural location, though city
dwellers are known to keep chickens. The setting could be just
about anywhere. Williams purposely makes the location of the
poem ambiguous, something he doesn't do in some of his other
poems. For example, his poem "Spring and All" is set "By the
road to the contagious hospital," and it goes on to describe
muddy fields and other markers of place.
By making the location ambiguous, Williams allows the reader
to choose the setting of the poem. The reader is free to
visualize their own wheelbarrow, neighborhood, and tasks.
The Red Wheelbarrow Study Guide Quotes 6

The chickens provide a spark of life to the scene of the

g Quotes inanimate wheelbarrow. They are white, which also provides a
contrast to the red wheelbarrow. The speaker is showing the
reader the rewards to be found in a scene that might seem
"So much depends / upon." ordinary at first glance. The wheelbarrow, evoking hard work,
gives it meaning; the chickens and the presence of the sun give
— Narrator it life; the colors and the glazed rainwater give it beauty, lifting
it out of the commonplace to the viewer who pays close
attention.
The poem's opening, a brief two-line stanza, is a call to the
reader's attention. To the speaker, "much depends" upon the
scene that will be described in the following stanzas. The
stanza has the poem's first of four uses of enjambment, or the
placement of line breaks in the middle of sentences. The effect
l Symbols
is to unify the four stanzas in a pleasing rhythm of pausing and
resuming.
The Wheelbarrow
"a red wheel / barrow"
Anyone who has ever pushed a wheelbarrow was probably
— working hard and even sweating as they did so. In this way the
poem's wheelbarrow is a reminder of hard work and even the
worker themself. So much work, so much progress depends
Now the reader begins to know upon what, exactly so much
upon this simple, dependable vehicle. It sits patiently, not
depends. This stanza, made into two lines by the division of
broken or rusted but bright red and ready to go now that the
wheelbarrow into two words, gives the first clue: the red
rain is over.
wheelbarrow is the occasion for the poem. Red is one of the
only two adjectives in the sparsely worded poem. Like the
opening phrase "So much depends / upon," the word signals
that the wheelbarrow stands out.
White Chickens

"glazed with rain / water"

— Narrator
The word glazed suggests that rainwater, perhaps from a
recent storm, has given the wheelbarrow a glistening and
striking appearance. It also suggests the presence of the
returning sun, which causes the wheelbarrow to sparkle.
Williams juxtaposes the inanimate red wheelbarrow with the
live white chickens. Just as the wheelbarrow is a practical
device, the chickens are practical birds. They aren't colorful,
fancy birds kept for vanity or hobby. They produce food for the
owners, eggs and meat, and are just another tool for survival.
Like the wheelbarrow, the chickens only do a few things, and
they can be relied on to do them well.

"beside the white / chickens." m Themes

— Narrator

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The Red Wheelbarrow Study Guide Narrative Voice 7

The reader doesn't know who is seeing the wheelbarrow or

The Beauty of Hard Work from what vantage point. The observer could be a farmer
standing at the window of his house, waiting for the rain to end
so he can go outside to work. The observer could be a
Williams paints a simple but powerful image of a red passerby—maybe Williams himself—pausing in his hard work as
wheelbarrow and white chickens. Both are emblems of simple, a doctor making house calls to contemplate the simple beauty
honest physical labor done to earn daily bread, whether it is of the scene, wondering if another passerby would recognize
the labor of pushing a wheelbarrow or of caring for chickens. the same beauty.
By emphasizing the color of the wheelbarrow, the contrast
In writing about the wheelbarrow, Williams encourages readers
between the colors of the wheelbarrow and the chickens, and
to notice the world around them. If not a wheelbarrow, the
the glassine beauty of the rainwater on the wheelbarrow,
poem might have been about some other object—a wooden
Williams ennobles this ordinary work and makes mundane farm
spoon used to prepare family meals, a sewing machine used to
objects seem striking and beautiful.
make a child's clothes, or a saw hanging on a barn wall, ready
"The Red Wheelbarrow" is a single sentence. While a reader for the next house it will help build. The wheelbarrow
might initially assume that wheelbarrow is the subject of the represents all the ordinary objects in readers' lives, objects
sentence, in fact, the subject is "so much." The "so much" of that are imbued, or filled, with beauty through their
the sentence is the work the wheelbarrow will do or has done associations.
in its lifetime. Williams wanted the reader to visualize the
wheelbarrow, but he also wanted the reader to contemplate
the work it is used for and what it means to its owner.
The Return of the Sun
The speaker doesn't express what it is that depends on the
red wheelbarrow. It could be almost anything—the work of
hauling chicken feed, tending a garden, bringing vegetables or
Williams doesn't mention the sun in the poem, but it is there as
eggs to market, or even construction work. The omission is
certainly as the wheelbarrow or the chickens. The sun causes
intentional, and it allows readers to bring their own ideas to the
the wheelbarrow to shine as if glazed with rainwater. Its return
poem. Williams saw the beauty in all of this work, and he
after a rainstorm brings the chickens into the yard.
wanted readers to see it too.
The wheelbarrow is safe and sound and ready for its daily
work after the rainstorm. Williams describes it as a red
wheelbarrow, not a faded or rusty one. Now that the rain has
The Role of Perception cleansed the world, the sun will dry the rainwater glaze and
allow the wheelbarrow to be of use once again. Similarly, the
chickens—and eventually, people—will return to the scene to
The way Williams describes the commonplace scene of the carry on their daily lives.
poem elevates it into something more important. The poem
leads readers to notice the wheelbarrow, the rainwater, and
the chickens, and it invites readers to view other ordinary
objects in new ways. Williams offers the wheelbarrow and the b Narrative Voice
other objects as works of art instead of everyday objects.
In "The Red Wheelbarrow," it's difficult to know whether William
The form of the poem reinforces this idea. While "The Red
Carlos Williams is writing in the first person or third person. It
Wheelbarrow" is only a single sentence, the line breaks and
could be either. The narrative voice is simple and spare.
balanced stanzas cause readers to pause and allow an image
Williams doesn't give the reader any clues to the speaker's
to take shape in their minds. This is similar to the experience of
identity or vantage point. Instead, he reveals just enough to
looking at a painting, seeing the focal point first, and then
allow readers to fill in the details as they visualize them.
noticing the objects around it.

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The Red Wheelbarrow Study Guide Narrative Voice 8

The poem is written in simple English, not elevated poetic

language. It is devoid of metaphors and similes, flowery
language, real symbols, and rhyme.

Readers are left with two distinct ideas. First there is a

snapshot of a particular moment in time: the red wheelbarrow
taking shape in front of the clearing sky, the rainwater dripping
off it, the white chickens appearing in the now-sunny day. Then
there are Williams's thoughts about the utilitarian red
wheelbarrow. Readers don't know anything about the
wheelbarrow, whom it belongs to, or why it is in the rain. They
only know it exists. In a sense the poem is a response to an
imagined question: "Yes. I see the wheelbarrow, but so what?"
Williams responds by explaining that "so much depends" upon
this wheelbarrow, and thus, he injects himself into the poem.
The reader sees his appreciation of this ordinary object, and
Williams invites the reader to appreciate it with him.

Overall, the language of the poem is ordinary. If this sentence

were in a novel, readers might overlook it. What makes it
special is the rhythm and particularly the line breaks. In its
simplicity and its natural setting, Williams's poem resembles a
haiku. However, while haiku has strict rules about form,
Williams devises his own form for his poem. He uses line
breaks to force the reader to pause and contemplate the
scene and even breaks lines in the middle of words—"wheel /
barrow" and "rain / water." These are the poet's deliberate
choices. Williams wanted the reader to stop and contemplate,
to see each line as drops of water, sliding to the end of a rain-
soaked branch, gathering, and eventually falling into the next
line.

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