Aprons of Silence
Aprons of Silence - meaning Summary
Silence as Self-preservation
Sandburg depicts a speaker who withholds speech amid relentless urban chatter and social conformity. He refuses canned consensus and retreats into a private "hoosegow" of thought, using images of aprons, hatches, and cells to show silence as deliberate containment. The poem presents silence as active self-preservation and interior integrity rather than mere absence of words, a way to resist the noisy pressures of public life.
Read Complete AnalysesMany things I might have said today. And I kept my mouth shut. So many times I was asked To come and say the same things Everybody was saying, no end To the yes-yes, yes-yes, me-too, me-too. The aprons of silence covered me. A wire and hatch held my tongue. I spit nails into an abyss and listened. I shut off the gable of Jones, Johnson, Smith, All whose names take pages in the city directory. I fixed up a padded cell and lugged it around. I locked myself in and nobody knew it. Only the keeper and the kept in the hoosegow Knew it--on the streets, in the post office, On the cars, into the railroad station Where the caller was calling, "All a-board, All a-board for . . . Blaa-blaa . . . Blaa-blaa, Blaa-blaa . . . and all points northwest . . .all a-board." Here I took along my own hoosegow And did business with my own thoughts. Do you see? It must be the aprons of silence.
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