Poetry · Chapter
On a Proposed Crematory explained
The narrator satirizes the proposed crematory by comparing it to a bridge that a fool first crosses.
What happens
The narrator satirizes the proposed crematory by comparing it to a bridge that a fool first crosses. He proposes to select the fittest candidates for cremation, targeting hypocritical religious figures who opposed cremation on the grounds of sacrilege, and imagines them being burned together as fuel for the furnace.
Themes in this chapter
Hypocrisy and Corruption
The narrator targets religious figures who protested cremation as sacrilege while ignoring the indignities of decay, exposing their hypocrisy.
Political Satire
The chapter satirizes public figures and their self-serving motives, using the crematory as a vehicle for social critique.
Key passages
“When a fair bridge is builded o’er the gulf Between two cities, some ambitious fool, Hot for distinction, pleads for earliest leave To push his clumsy feet upon the span, That men in after years may single him, Saying: “Behold the fool who first went o’er!””
When a new bridge is built, some fool eager for fame wants to be the first to cross it, so people will remember him as the first to do so.
The narrator uses the bridge metaphor to introduce the idea of being the first to use the crematory.
“With such a sturdy, boisterous exclaim They did discharge themselves from their own throats Against the splintered gates of audience ’Twere wholesomer to take them in at mouth Than ear.”
Their loud protests were so obnoxious that it would be healthier to swallow them than to listen to them.
The narrator suggests that the opponents of cremation are so irritating that they deserve to be burned first.