À Bas Ben Adhem
À Bas Ben Adhem - meaning Summary
Comic Misanthropy and Irony
Ogden Nash's poem is a comic, satirical speaker who rejects humanity and mocks human self-importance. He questions the purpose of people beyond reproduction, imagines their extinction with ironic approval, and ridicules human pretensions — from politics to celebrity — while insisting he would be better off without them. The tone is playful misanthropy: humor and exaggeration expose hypocrisy and human vanity rather than sincere hatred.
Read Complete AnalysesMy fellow man I do not care for. I often ask me, What's he there for? The only answer I can find Is, Reproduction of his kind. If I'm supposed to swallow that, Winnetka is my habitat. Isn't it time to carve Hic Jacet Above that Reproduction racket? To make the matter more succinct: Suppose my fellow man extinct. Why, who would not approve the plan Save possibly my fellow man? Yet with a politician's voice He names himself as Nature's choice. The finest of the human race Are bad in figure, worse in face. Yet just because they have two legs And come from storks instead of eggs They count the spacious firmament As something to be charged and sent. Though man created cross-town traffic, The Daily Mirror, News and Graphic, The pastoral fight and fighting pastor, And Queen Marie and Lady Astor, He hails himself with drum and fife And bullies lower forms of life. Not that I think much depends On how we treat our feathered friends, Or hold the wrinkled elephant A nobler creature than my aunt. It's simply that I'm sure I can Get on without my fellow man.
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