Gregory Corse’s “The American Way” Close Reading

Gregory Corso’s “The American Way” puts a primary focus on what could potentially lead the country into ruin.  The speaker focuses on the forces at play within the country that could spell out an impending doom for the nation.  Ideologies and ideas are crashing together, but America seems ready to repeat the mistakes of the past which could lead it down the path of the great empires before it.  The idea that people are “frakensteining” this country and creating a beast of their own design, but instead of a savior, these religious figureheads have created their doom.  The poem details the dangerous and foolhardy ideas that America has begun to follow in mass unaware of the danger and the sudden drop that awaits her on the other side.  The speaker refers to these religious gatherings as “campaigns” that occur within “stadiums” across the country.  The point of religion is convincing a non-believer of the truth about religion, but Corso’s poem sees these men approaching religion as they might a war where if they cannot convert every person that they encountered, then they are not victorious.  Stadiums invoke images of ancient Greece and Rome where people are controlled through spectacles and shows that are meant to entertain instead of convince the masses to agree on ideologies and a higher power.

Corsa uses repetition to instill the idea that everything happens as a collective instead of occurring from an individual perspective.  Using pronouns such as “they” and “it” removes the individuality and makes these new believers in these ideas are one of many, but faceless in the crowd. These followers are given the appearance of lemmings who will blindly follow their leader wherever they are asked to go regardless of the consequences.  Corso questions the loss of free thinking outside of what religion tells people that they should be.  The question of what has happened to religion in America where the value and ideals that help shape people are lost to the wants and desires of the people to be entertained.  The Holy Sacraments of bread and wine are twisted in “Oreos and Dr. Pepper” as the pieces of a sacred tradition stretching back thousands of year has been Americanized.  The American people are carving religion into what they believe it should be which has damaged the very essence of Christianity.  The poet uses very important aspects of Christianity such as the congregation of a large group, the sacraments, and the preacher and twists them to demonstrate how these entities are mangled to fit into “The American Way” and take away the principles and cornerstones of Christianity. Preachers are some of the most believable people in society to the extent that they are often followed even when they go off on tangents.

The author refers to speaker’s as “educators,” but they are not fulling this role in the way that it was intended.  Educators are supposed to teach the students about certain aspects of life, but they are not supposed to influence these decision merely provide guidance and support should it be needed. Corso compares these people crowding in stadiums to those being “enslaved” as well as molding the minds of the “young” where they can convince those with less experience to follow their lead.  Children and congregants trust those in charge and will often follow them to the ends of the earth, but sometimes a teacher or a preacher is wrong and leads people down the wrong path.  The author pays reference to the “American Way” of life which consists of what makes the place America, but through this process, the people that are a product of religion and  homegrown Christianity are dangerous.

Each dawn begins a new day, but these teachings have allowed the country to  grow “in the wrong direction” where it gets “old” which in the mind of the reader is a “mistake.”  People and ideas change, but the way  the Christianity was allowed to grow unchecked in America where  people become lemmings and “to grow is to know a limit” because these people have a hard time breaking free as it is all they have ever known.  Corso notes the irony in the idea that the world is supposed to move forward and a new adventure, but these large gatherings have made the rotation seem stagnent and the growth of young minds across the country is not happening in large quantities.  A country that  preaches freedom, but fails to find that freedom for itself despite  the efforts at play.  Throughout the poem, the writers choose to capitalize the word “Way” which further deconstructs the idea of freedom within the United States because of these movement.  They believe that these is only one way and that the other roads lead down a dangerous path.

Within this poem, there were many different moving parts, and I found it complex to fit all of this information and artistic decisions into a blog post, but time marches on and despite the American Way designed to keep people comfortable where they are may not be the best fit for everyone, and that sometimes we need to grow even when we would rather stay in one place.

Were they any parts that felt as though they fought for standardization instead of diversifying various aspects of the lives that we lead.