Dalton Rees

ENGL 2600
Lewis
3 December 2015

The Perils of American Consumerism in A Supermarket in California

In another of his grand obstructions of the wavering line between the profound and the
absurd, Alan Ginsberg presents an endearing portrayal of a highly-internalized excursion to the
local grocery store in A Supermarket in California. Through this one-sided hypothetical
exchange between the speaker and late forefather of beat poetry and modern transcendentalism,
Ginsberg presents a clever yet backhandedly discouraging portrayal of emergent consumerism in
a time of national and ideological change, evoking a provocative quandary as to the preservation
of the American ideology and way of life in the face of modern conveniences and their
associated potential for domestic pacification. This interpretation is most evident in the speakers
peculiar diction and continuous direct allusions to Walt Whitman throughout, as if personifying
an older America in his presence.
The speakers emphasis on the visual connection between the consumer and the product
begins within the second stanza: In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the
neon fruit supermarket (3) Though the speaker is hungry, he has entered the shopping venue
under the pretext of browsing images, certainly a stark deviation from simply maintaining bodily
sustenance, suggesting an ulterior inclination towards the retailers products. The following
reference to the neon fruit holds a visual connotation, relating to either the neon quality of the
fruit themselves or a fluorescent sign luminously attracting warry souls in the night with the

promise of satisfaction. One can justifiably argue that the supermarket shoppers are in pursuit of
the experience of sifting through the brightly-colored labels and product wrappers, each
promising happiness and fulfillment in its purchase.
The speaker continues by transitioning into the supermarket itself, What peaches and
what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes! (5) At first glance, the speakers description appears to be a
bit of infatuated exposition, an ecstatic once-over of the scene, through the syntactical structure
offers a different interpretation. A penumbra, being the outer region of a cast shadow rather than
an obscure fruit as I had originally assumed, is a peculiar presence to specifically recognize in a
supermarket, reflecting the corresponding absurdity of the subsequent phrases. In consideration
of the slim likelihood of the individual family members shopping separately, particularly babies
browsing through the produce, it is evident that the referenced families are not in the
departmental locations of these objects (or in the husbands case, grocery aisles) but rather in the
objects themselves. Within the penumbras, or vacant spaces between the convenient intervals of
grocery items, the weary shoppers manifest their internal processes, in this case perhaps being a
yearning for family or at the very least familiarity- causing the speaker, with the likeliness of
Walt Whitman on his mind, to find Garcia Lorca within the watermelons, a figure similar in both
style and disposition.
Following a slight deviation from his single-sided dialogue, the speaker directs his
attention back towards Whitman, I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys. I heard you asking
questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel? (7)
While the nature of the speakers words directed towards Whitman in this stanza are harsh and

direct, they nonetheless maintain the endearing, even affectionate, tone of the entirety of the
piece, as if these insults are in some way ironic. Whitmans peculiar questions hold a significant
degree of irony as well. Who killed the pork chops? suggests that the pork chops, the direct
product of a deceased animal, were living before being slaughtered, which is of course,
ridiculous, and we all know very well who killed them. Being that it is a fractured sentence with
an inferred sarcastic undertone, What price bananas? is virtually ironic to the extent of
mockery, contributing to the non-contextual question Are you my Angel? With a capital A
insinuating a proper noun or the assumption that this grocery boy is Whitmans savior. This
nearly excessive presence of irony may suggest that the speakers presence in the story is an
ironic occurrence, or perhaps this was intended to be left purposefully ambiguous as an
entertaining creative choice.
In two indented descriptions, the speaker appears to be physically accompanied by
Whitman as they sift through the aisles: I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective. We strode down the open
corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and
never passing the cashier (12). The first stanza in this series could justifiably be interpreted in
one of two ways: the speaker physically follows Whitman through grocery shelves of stacked
cans or this prospective following is somewhat epistemological, studying the brilliant stacks of
cans with a similar analytical process. The store detective, whether he be corporeal or an
expression of the speakers conception of authority (suspiciously opposed to his perception of the
cans for one reason or another) could also be interpreted interchangeably. The speakers referral
of the couples fancy as being solitary reaffirms the premise that his relationship with Whitman
in the store is a cognitive projection, as with the previously mentioned consumer hallucinations

of fulfillment through the brightly-colored welcoming objects. It is unclear, however, why the
solitary duo never passes the cashier. One is justified in arguing that this is representative of
them, or rather the speaker, being unwilling to make a purchase and simply finding solace within
the store as he shops for images. The speaker wants only the joys of the brightly-colored labels
and the alternative perception of the grocery store delicacies.
Transitioning into the later-part of the piece, being outside of the store, the speaker asks
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard
point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd)
(14). By physically touching the book and thereby recognizing the true disassociated nature of
his connection with Walt Whitman, existing only within the printed words of an era long
forgotten, the speaker senses an attributable level of absurdity, but continues the dialogue and his
perception of Whitman as a present entity nonetheless. His inquiry as to the orientation of the
poets beard that night is most likely insignificant, to the greater understanding of the piece,
anyway. The speaker proceeds to ask, Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees
add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, well both be lonely (17). This particular passage
paints some degree of a dismal scene, referring to the night as solitary amongst shaded trees and
darkened houses. This line may serve as a momentary shift in the tone of the piece, providing it
with an increased level of melancholy, referring to the streets themselves as being solitary.
This melancholy tone serves as a segue into the final two stanzas of the piece, arguably
being the most representative of the poems overlying meaning: Will we stroll dreaming of the
lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage? Ah, dear
father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the

black waters of Lethe? (18) Referencing the Ancient Greek conception of the afterlife involving
Charon, the boatman of the underworld that ushers fallen souls across the River Lethe (Lethe
translating to forgetfulness), the speaker wonders what America Whitman left behind when he
reached the end of his lifespan; before the transition to true American consumerism and its
associated ideological structures and materialistic realities.

Works Cited
Ginsberg, Allen. A Supermarket in California, Collected Poems 1947-1980, HarperCollins
Publishers, Inc.