so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Analysis, meaning and summary of William Carlos Williams's poem The Red Wheelbarrow

64 Comments

  1. horny hoe says:

    this poem has very complex meanings the wheelbarrow stands for the vagina the rainwater stands for the cum on her ass the chickens are the millions of viewers watching the girl being penetrated through the ass

    fuckfuckfuck thats wat bob jhonson does to his momma

  2. mr. all up in yo ass says:

    i read this poem and it made my great african monkey vibrate it made my penis longer and my asshole contract
    i wanted to fuck my monkeys sister i read it to my monkey and it funkied on my leg and then i licked it off

    sounds fun right????

  3. Jacob says:

    It’s not meant to mean anything!!! All it is is a red wheelbarrow after a rain with chickens around it! Williams is tired of poets dragging out images, making them so confused that you can’t understand what they’re trying to say unless you take a college lit course. (see “The Waste Land”) What you see is what you get in this poem.

  4. Mary says:

    what this poem is talking about is society. the red wheelbarrow represents the workers of society. the rain represents sweat that comes from working so hard. the chickens represent the upper class that does nothing but stand watching us work.

  5. Ness says:

    This is the first time i have ever read this poem and to be honest i was searching through the internet for the rest of it. I understand its message and i see where its coming from but its a little too bleak for my liking. But i suppose the author gets across what he wants to say so i give him credit for that.

  6. Beki says:

    This poem shows a lot of imagery. Some really crap poets simply TELL us what is happening around him at the time. WCW actually shows us what he’s seeing. Like pretty much everyone, I read this poem and thought “what the hell??” But my English Writing class at college studied it closer and the more and more we studied the more the whole class seemed to understand about GOOD poetry. And I mean, think about it, if any of you live on a farm, really, so much does depend on the wheelbarrow. The fact that it’s red sets the picture in our minds. And look at the structure of it. Three words on one line, then just one on the next… it’s repeated throughtout the whole poem. And the simplicity of the language is amazing. I mean you could look at it saying, “oh, I could’ve written that!” but the point is, you didn’t.

    So think about that!

  7. Coralie says:

    I’m sure people have said this
    but
    to me the poem simply says that he is observing the world around him, the Red Wheelbarrow allows people to move objects from place to place, making hard farm work easier , that’s what depends on the barrow- him and his family (and the chickens) they also depend on a certain amount of rain for growth of crops (which i assume is why he isn’t negative towards the rain in anyway) and He is just commenting on how all these things he sees work together even if they don’t know they do (chickens on the wheelbarrow for grain and the rain for grain etc)

    It’s simplicity, an observation on the interconnecting web of life

    look outside!

    xX coralie

  8. Kasia says:

    I really don’t like this poem, but I think the poet is talking about the readers. So much does depend on the reader, and Williams only beleived art was art when people read or looked at the art. This poem is a test for the reader to see if they can swallow the poem, or have the poem swallow them.

  9. Jessy says:

    yeah i read this poem in da 11th grade for my writing class when i 1st read it i thought “wat da f*ck” but when i read it and read it then i understood dat it was all about a red wheel barrow n it was so easy because its just letting da people know how much other depend upon it… well WCW he’s different compare to others n its a good things because all da others write about is love drama n romance no things need to be different n writing about things dat arent notiieable.

  10. Katie says:

    I had tihs poem to do for my American Lit 202 class in college. I read in to this poem also. Everyone thinks that a poem is suppose to have a meaning, but that is not true. My teacher said that all the poem is meaning about a Red Wheelbarrow on a farm. That is all it is talking about

  11. mattmatt123 says:

    i shouldnt really have 2 say anything about this poem. Its stupid and so is everyone who likes it. i cant even beleave people left good comments on it. well at least my class will like this peom b/c they will find it so stupid it will b funny.

  12. Rob says:

    I agree with Brittany, when I first read this poem my first impression was that it was about how people can take certain things that are actually very important to them for granted.

  13. Brittany says:

    I think it’s talking about how people take things for granted. It says “So much depends on it”….Meaning the farm, but they just leave it out in the rain by the chickens.

  14. Ryan says:

    “Through metaphor to reconcile the people and the stones. Compose. (No ideas but in things.) Invent!”
    – William Carlos Williams

    http://www.saveaslacker.com

  15. Prometheis says:

    i think this poet is strange. sounds to me like he just writes what ever he’s thinking at the time. so he saw a wheelbarrow that was wet, and it had some chickens around it. now when it comes to colors symbolizing things, i dont think so. almost every wheelbarrow i see is red, and almost every chicken i see is white. but if this dude could be concidered a poet then so can anyone pretty much. although, they are sorta interesting (his poems). I’ll give him some credit.

  16. Silver Moon says:

    I agree with Eli that it doesnt symbolize a whole lot, but the poem is not racist. Williams probably wasnt trying to be politically correct and thinking that if he included white chickens it would be taken the wrong way. That was probably just the color of the chickens that he had. My thought on this poem is that even the simplest things are important and can be beautiful. Usually when I picture a wheelbarrow, I think of the rusty old thing that is stashed away in my garage, but this poem shows the true beauty of such a useful, and (in the poet’s time) necessary object.

  17. Eli says:

    He was talking about a freaking wheelbarrow. It is’nt some devine symbol from God. I’m sure they depended on it, but they could always buy a new one. And what’s with the freaking chickens. You racists, why white.

  18. seif al aswad says:

    i think that the poem is an imagegistic poem it was written for the sake of words which are just expressing some downtoearth vision with the use of the japanese flag colors and we should have noticed that the poem is written in the form of the haiku (japanese poem) the poem has no meaning for paraphrasing that it

  19. Kevin says:

    When i first read this poem i tought… tried to think some more and still could notfigure what williams was talking about. We talked about the poem in class and started to discuss it and i had an epifiany and loved the poem. It symbolizes so much, the red wheelbarrow could represent evil-being red, or it could represent a key part of life. He grew up in jersey, so back in the 1800’s it was farm land and well wheelbarrows were a neccesity. then the rain was a great thing because back then and not as much now rain was needed for crops.then there is the white chickens which can represent purity and goodness, but it also represents the people standing around the wheelbarrow and not realizing how much depends on the wheelbarrow. the chickens/people wouldnt be where they were if it werent for the wheelbarrow. this poem is vary short beu vary deep. -Highschool Student

  20. Duckie13 says:

    *I love this poem.:) he he

    This really shows that William Carlos williams was an idealistic poet and used simple ideas and words to bring across very descriptive pictures.

    The way this poem is worded shows the deeper meaning greatly, like “so much depends upon the red wheelbarrow” shows that probably where this man grew up was in a rural farming area, which in was, Rutherford. This tells that many people did depend about the wheelbarrow to keep them alive by helping cultivate their crops.

    The way the poem states “glazed with rain water” shows that he meant this was probabaly right after a rain/shower and that the “glaze” was still there but probably will not last much longer symbolizing that the dew will dry and dissapitate along with our temporary depression, sadness, or even happiness.

    Hope this helped!!! 🙂

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