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Marxist Theory

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A Peck Of Gold
By: Robert Frost

click here for a video reading by me

Dust always blowing about the town,
Except when sea-fog laid it down,
And I was one of the children told
Some of the blowing dust was gold.

All the dust the wind blew high
Appeared like gold in the sunset sky,
But I was one of the children told
Some of the dust was really gold.

Such was life in the Golden Gate:
Gold dusted all we drank and ate,
And I was one of the children told,
'We all must eat our peck of gold

            Marxist Theory Emphasizes the role of class (haves and have nots) and how the rich have power over the poor and influence their lives.

            The poem “A peck of Gold” falls within this Marxist view in my mind because it is discussing gold as if it were something to be eaten. We all know that you can’t eat gold so for someone to tell a child that dust has gold in it obviously has a different agenda. I think that the food he was being asked to eat in the poem as a child was dirty somehow and the person feeding it to him told him that it was ok because the dust had gold in it and everyone likes gold. This poem also does a good job of using imagery to help the audience visualize the setting it is taking place in. The one line that does this the best is "Appeared like gold in the sunset sky". We have all seen sunsets and so visualizing this was not difficult.

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. "