They Buy with an Eye to Looks
They Buy with an Eye to Looks - meaning Summary
Love as Commodity and Display
Sandburg satirically equates love and marriage with exotic cloth bought for show. The speaker describes businessmen and self-made tycoons treating wives as decorative trophies—an imported fabric to be displayed and boasted about to friends. The repeated image of a “fabric of Egypt” highlights commodification and performative pride, suggesting relationships are often reduced to social display and status rather than genuine affection.
Read Complete AnalysesTHE FINE cloth of your love might be a fabric of Egypt, Something Sinbad, the sailor, took away from robbers, Something a traveler with plenty of money might pick up And bring home and stick on the walls and say: 'There's a little thing made a hit with me When I was in Cairo-I think I must see Cairo again some day.' So there are cornice manufacturers, chewing gum kings, Young Napoleons who corner eggs or corner cheese, Phenoms looking for more worlds to corner, And still other phenoms who lard themselves in And make a killing in steel, copper, permanganese, And they say to random friends in for a call: 'Have you had a look at my wife? Here she is. Haven't I got her dolled up for fair?' O-ee! the fine cloth of your love might be a fabric of Egypt.
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