MODULE 2 Valuing Others

and Their Circumstances

LESSON 2:
Observing Others’
Circumstances
The Man with
the Hoe
by
Edwin Markham
 Vocabulary Word
1. century noun.
a period of
100 years
 Vocabulary Word

2. gaze verb.
stare
Vocabulary Word

3. Rapture
Noun.
delight
Vocabulary Word
4. Stolid
Adjective.
dull; emotionless
Vocabulary Word
5. dominion
Noun.
power; authority
Vocabulary Word
6. fraught
Adjective.
full; loaded
Vocabulary Word
7. Seraphim
Noun.
6-winged angel
Vocabulary Word
8. Distort
Verb.
deform;disfigure
Vocabulary Word
9. profane
Adjective.
disrespectful
Vocabulary Word
10. perfidious
Adjective.
disloyal; untrue
Charles Edwin Anson Markham
Charles Edwin Anson Markham
was born on April 23, 1852, in
Oregon City, Oregon, the youngest of
six children. His parents were
divorced shortly after his birth, and
Charles, as he was known for many
years, saw almost nothing of his
father.
In 1856, Charles moved with
his mother and only sister to a ranch
in Lagoon Valley, northeast of San
Francisco. By the age of twelve, he
was doing hard labor on the family
farm.
Charles’s mother vehemently opposed
his interest in literature, but he
nonetheless attended a rudimentary
“college” at Vacaville, California, and
managed to earn enough money
through teaching to continue his
studies at Christian College in Santa
Rosa, California.
He completed the classical course in
1873 and went on to teach in El
Dorado County. Markham was elected
county superintendent of schools in
1879 and received the principalship of
the Tompkins Observation School in
Oakland in 1890.
Markham died on March 7, 1940,
in Brooklyn, New York. Upon his
death, he bequeathed his personal
library of 15,000 volumes to the
Horrmann Library, Wagner College,
on Staten Island.
He also gave to the college his
personal papers, including many
manuscript letters from well-known
literary and political figures of the
early twentieth century. Among
his correspondents were Franklin
D. Roosevelt, Ambrose Bierce,
Jack London, Carl Sandburg
and Amy Lowell.
Motive Question?
What circumstance is the
persona faced with?

The Man with the Hoe

Edwin Markham
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes.
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
The Man with the Hoe
Edwin Markham
Stanza 1
The speaker presents a male
persona who carries the
burden of the world.

The Man with the Hoe

Edwin Markham
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this —
More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed —
More filled with signs and portents for the soul —
More fraught with menace to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
The Man with the Hoe
Edwin Markham
Stanza 2
The speaker asks the
question, “Is this the thing
the Lord God made and gave?

The Man with the Hoe

Edwin Markham
 Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in the aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world.
A protest that is also a prophecy.
The Man with the Hoe
Edwin Markham
Stanza 3
Laborers are oppressed and
exploited in the world.

The Man with the Hoe

Edwin Markham
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream,
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?

The Man with the Hoe

Edwin Markham
Stanza 4
Employers should give back
respect to laborers and rebuild
the glory of their hard work.

The Man with the Hoe

Edwin Markham
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings —
With those who shaped him to the thing he is —
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the
world. After the silence of the centuries?

The Man with the Hoe

Edwin Markham
Stanza 5
The speaker asks, ”How will
Future consider the state of
this Man?”

The Man with the Hoe

Edwin Markham
General Analysis
The man with the hoe repre-
sents laborers who are abused
and demoralized. Rest and
reward remain a question to
behold in the future.
The Man with the Hoe
Edwin Markham