The Folly of Mankind

Mankind is foolish. Mankind is ignorant. Most importantly: mankind is forgetful and unlearning. Carl Sandburg shows this in his poem “Grass.” Through the personification of nature, Sandburg suggests that mankind is incapable of learning from mistakes they make, and thus are doomed to repeat the tragic events of history. Sandburg’s use of characterization, tone and chronological events paints a gloomy picture for the future of mankind.

The most important element in defining this theme is Sandburg’s strong use of characterization. He chooses the grass to narrate the poem in first person, and through word choice and repetition, the reader gains a respect for nature. Nature’s unemotional observation of the wars of man forces this respect. Even when faced with great tragedies like Austerlitz and Waterloo the grass only says “Shovel them under and let me work— / I am the grass; I cover all.” (Sandburg, Lines 2-3) By contrast, Sandburg portrays mankind to be ignorant of their own mistakes by saying “Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now?” (7-9) The juxtaposition of the all knowing, all covering grass and the forgetful humans really makes it clear that the reader is meant to sympathize with nature’s plight.

Sandburg chooses to have nature take a very sarcastic and borderline condescending tone while narrating this poem. It seems that nature is becoming frustrated that men are unable to learn from the mistakes that they’ve made and instead just allow the grass to cover up the mistakes: band-aid after band-aid. Just picture the janitor who day after day needs to pick up all of the trash surrounding the trash can, that didn’t make it in the can even though it wasn’t full. “Oh sure, don’t put it in the can. I mean, why bother when there’s a janitor anyway, right?” Grass’s opinion on mankind is very similar. “So, even after all of the dead at Austerlitz and Waterloo, that I had to clean up after, you’re going to forget that and do it again at Gettysburg, and again at Ypres, and again at Verdun.” After all—“I am the grass. / Let me work.” (Sandburg 10-11)

The battles in this poem are listed in chronological order. This is very important. The poem wouldn’t have lost any of its impact if the battles weren’t listed chronologically; however, listing them chronologically brings the theme all together. This poem was written in 1918, just two years after the battle of Verdun. This poem is Sandburg’s way of saying to the world “have you already forgotten Austerlitz? Have you already forgotten Waterloo? Why are we doing this again, so soon?” the line “Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor: / What place is this? / Where are we now?” (7-9) is Sandburg’s way of calling out the rest of mankind. Asking how could you be so ignorant to history? He’s saying: if we let ourselves forget the battles of times past, we’re doomed to repeat them. When is the next Verdun?

The combination of characterization, tone, and historical events in this poem are expertly wrapped up into a theme that presents mankind with nature’s (and Sandburg’s) frustration with the folly of mankind. If humans continue to ignore history, continue to forget previous conflicts, continue to refuse to learn from their mistakes, then they are to be doomed to continuously make the same mistakes, which will result in many unnecessary deaths.