Corys Edwin Robinson and Paul

¶ … Corys

Edwin Robinson and Paul Simon both view a wealthy man who was a regular figure in the media, politics and the neighborhood, according to the personas they view him from. Robinson and Simon react to wealth from the same point-of-view but take different approaches, Simon's a more confrontational criticism of what he attacks as Richard Cory's attempts to pose himself as a 'regular guy' amongst those who struggle when he reaps the benefit of their labor. Both react in shock as many of their readers must have, when this seemingly elegant and gallant man of stature takes his own life, but they present that to their audience in different ways.

The two authors agree that Cory was "schooled in every grace" (Robinson, line 10), although where Robinson draws his reader into the portrait with a softer view of the suicide's humanity, because while Cory is an elegant and debonair figure, he dresses "quietly" (5) arrayed, and Robinson's measured, formal but loose cadence and arrangement in stanzas gives us such a dignified rhythm that suggests such a gentlemanly demeanor. But once we become interested in Cory, Robinson slips in some discord, because Cory excites "fluttered pulses" (6) in spite of his poise in what turns out to be a shabby neighborhoods of the overworked and desperate poor who look at him in surprise. Robinson sets up a conflict of imagery through four very short quatrains when at the end it turns out the audience is confused and demoralized, struggling for the good life they thought must come if they could only be Cory.

Paul Simon takes a more directly critical route, attacking Cory from the viewpoint of a factory worker, where Robinson is more ambiguous. Simon's indictment of Cory blames him for being born into wealth rather than earning it, a detail Robinson never actually states, and focuses more on Cory's "political connections" (2) bought with money that the worker curses him for squandering and abusing. While Simon attacks Cory more frontally, he also generalizes from Cory himself to the system of power that relies on others to "spread his wealth around" through these connections (2), and thus indicts a wider culture where Robinson downplays such generalization.