Unvalued Bodies in Rosenbergs Dead Mans Dump and...

The body can be viewed, imagined and represented in different ways depending on the society, context, gender, literary work, and much more. In Langston Hughes’ â€Å"Ruby Brown,† the body of Ruby Brown is at first thought of as a body of work, but as the poem progresses her body becomes a figure of pleasure. In â€Å"Dead Man’s Dump† by Isaac Rosenberg, the bodies of the soldiers are not appreciated, tossed away as if they are trash, and only used as a means to an end. Both poems correlate to the specific time period they were written in, and the poems symbolize the realities each individual situation the bodies are presented with. While both of these poems focus on similar aspects, the ways in which the bodies are ‘put to use’ are vastly different.†¦show more content†¦The bodies in Rosenberg’s poem are presented as being meaningless. By calling the bodies a â€Å"souls’ sack,† (Rosenberg 24) the emphasis and imp ortance is not placed on the body, but on the soul. The body is seen as temporary invaluable housing for the soul, and that is the only credit it is given, or is worthy of. The poem insinuates that the only worth a body has, other than housing the soul, is to be victorious in war – where now the dead bodies of the men who risked their lives and ultimately lost their lives are given no respect and are thrown away as being meaningless, useless, and unimportant. While the bodies may be shown some respect while being alive, there is no respect present after death: The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched, Their shut mouths made no moan (Rosenberg 7-9) The bodies are now insignificant. Since they can no longer contribute to the war, they are tossed away in a dump as if they are meaningless pieces of trash. While unlike Rosenberg’s presentation of the useless body, Langston Hughes’ â€Å"Ruby Brown† is representative of the domestic, submissive body. â€Å"In Ruby Brown, Black domestic work is contrasted with the work of Black female prostitutes† (Borden).