Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Robert Penn Warren’s "Images on the Tomb: 3. Evening: The Motors" brings the series toward its conclusion by addressing the theme of evening, using the image of motors and the movements of men through the streets to explore the monotony of life and the undercurrent of unspoken fears that accompany daily routines. The poem opens with the repetitive, mechanical nature of evening commutes, as "remorselessly the evening motors pass." This word choice—"remorselessly"—emphasizes the impersonal, unfeeling quality of the motors, which bear people home through familiar streets but offer no reprieve from the deeper emotional and existential voids they carry with them.

The setting of the street, with its "doorways and windows where behind the glass / Are lights, and faces that have eyes to see," sets up an image of domestic life. But Warren immediately undercuts the normalcy of this scene by suggesting a sense of isolation, despite proximity. The faces behind the glass may have "eyes to see" and "ears to hear," but they do not truly perceive or connect to their surroundings. The repetition of "seeing but nothing" and "ears to hear that hear nothing" underscores the idea that people have become disconnected from the world around them, even from one another. The sensory details—the sight and sound of the evening scene—are present, but devoid of meaning, as the people in the poem fail to truly engage with the world or their own inner lives.

Warren’s use of red lips—"red lips to cry out that cry not"—adds another layer to this exploration of detachment and fear. The lips, which symbolize both speech and life, are restrained; they do not cry out but instead "speak, speaking quickly, for the fear / Of seeing shadows that they have forgot." The hurried, fearful speech suggests that beneath the surface of these mundane interactions lies a deep, buried anxiety—perhaps an awareness of mortality or the existential shadows that people choose to forget. The "shadows" may symbolize forgotten fears, suppressed emotions, or the haunting awareness of the void, and the act of "speaking quickly" reflects the attempt to gloss over these uncomfortable truths.

As the evening progresses, the motors bear the individuals "home / To words and silence, food, tobacco, sleep." These elements—speech, silence, sustenance, and rest—are the rituals of evening, but they seem to offer little comfort or solace. The reference to "words and silence" juxtaposes the active and passive aspects of communication, suggesting that while people may speak, their words are often hollow, and their silences are filled with unspoken tensions. Food and tobacco, often associated with relaxation or sustenance, feel similarly empty, merely part of the routine leading toward sleep.

Sleep itself is depicted in a somber, almost despairing light. The phrase "To sleep, the dark wherein you all are piled, / Poor fragments of the day" evokes the image of people as fragmented, incomplete beings, merely waiting to be put to rest. The sleep described here is not a peaceful, restorative sleep but rather a state in which people are "piled" together, suggesting a sense of accumulation without cohesion, as if the day’s experiences have left them in pieces. The repetition of this word "piled" evokes lifelessness, a sense that the day has dehumanized its participants, reducing them to mere fragments.

The poem’s conclusion offers a glimpse of release, but even this release is fraught with tension. Dreams come to "release from the troubled heart and deep / The pageantry of thoughts unreconciled." Dreams here represent an escape from the day’s monotony and the emotional fragmentation of life, yet they are filled with "thoughts unreconciled." The "pageantry" of dreams suggests a vivid, perhaps theatrical display of emotions, memories, and fears that have not been resolved during waking life. Even in sleep, these unresolved elements of the psyche persist, manifesting as dreams that both release and torment the troubled heart.

Warren’s choice of structure—again in free verse, without a strict rhyme or meter—gives the poem a sense of fluidity and natural speech, which mirrors the flowing, unrelenting passage of time and the mechanical progression of evening routines. The form enhances the feeling of disconnection and fragmentation, as the poem moves from scene to scene without the comfort of a fixed structure, much like the emotional state of the people it describes.

In "Images on the Tomb: 3. Evening: The Motors," Robert Penn Warren examines the evening as a time of reckoning, not with grandeur or revelation, but with the mundane reality of fragmented lives. The poem presents a vision of people who move through their routines—returning home, eating, smoking, and sleeping—while carrying within them unresolved fears and forgotten shadows. The mechanical, "remorseless" passage of time is contrasted with the emotional and existential voids that remain unspoken but ever-present. Warren’s exploration of disconnection, fear, and the thin veil of normalcy that masks deeper anxieties continues the series' meditation on mortality, offering a bleak but poignant reflection on the human condition.

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