What is The Man with the Hoe all about?

It portrays the hard labor of much of humanity using the symbolism of a laborer
leaning upon his hoe, over burdened by his work, but receiving hardly any rest or
reward. The main theme of the poem is that hard physical labor without any reward
completely dehumanizes a person.

Message

The message has something to do to it portrays the hard labor of much of humanity
using the symbolism of a laborer leaning upon his hoe, over burdened by his work,
but receiving hardly any rest or reward. And the author also implies this to the
farmers to fight for their rights and dont rely forever in their wheel of labor.

Moral lesson

This story shows a community of seemingly average, peaceful citizens who

participate in a horrific ritual of violence and death voluntarily. The village is shown
to be a collection of nice, hardworking people who are appear to be like many
typical communities, yet they have a tradition that singles out an individual to be
brutalized and killed. These people spend much of their time as neighbors and
friends, yet their ritual requires/allows them to randomly choose a person as
the target for their cruelty, and it is carried out without conscience or grief.

What does the man with the hoe symbolize?

It portrays the hard labor of much of humanity using the symbolism of a laborer
leaning upon his hoe, over burdened by his work, but receiving hardly any rest or
reward. ... "The Hoe man is the symbol of betrayed humanity, the Toiler ground
down through ages of oppression, through ages of social injustice.

How does the poet describe the man in the man with the hoe?

The poet describes the man with the hoe as a pitiful and pitiable figure. He is bowed
down 'with the weight of centuries' and carries the 'burden of the world' on his
back. ... Basically, the poet draws our attention to the degradation that is the direct
result of the farmer's subsistence lifestyle.
By the late 1800s, Jean Francois Millet’s Man with a Hoe was in a well-known
private collection in San Francisco. The paintings became one of the most famous in
the United States at the turn of the 20th century, and it inspired an American poet
named Edwin Markham to wite a poem titled “The man with the Hoe” in 1899.

Markham uses hyperbole throughout his poem (e.g Bowed by the weight of
centuries he leans “, “this monstrous thing distorted and soul quenched?)

1. How does the poet use hyperbole to persuade the reader?

Answer: he may use hyperbole to make man’s situation seem even graver
in order to elicit sympathy for him.

2. Why do you think the speaker of the poem refers to the man as a “brother to
the ox”?
Answer: his laborers have been appropriated to sustain the world’s blind
greed”, He relate the man to something nonhuman, an animal that used in
the agricultural industry.

3. In the poem, what does God intend him to be?

Answer: from the poem the poet is trying to tell us God originally intended
the former to be a powerful human being, one with supremacy and control
over the sea and the land. This farmer was meant to live fully (to feel the
passion of eternity) and so search out the mysteries of the stars and the
universe. The poet lament that, instead, the farmer is living the wrong
Dream,’ he is betrayed by faceless masters: Lords and rulers in all lands’.
Who have plundered, profaned, and disinherited him from his true heritage.”

4. The man with a hoe is a “slave of the wheel of labor’, what does the wheel
symbolizes?”
Answer: the wheel here symbolizes never-ending servitude.

5. What is meant by the line, what to him are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?”
Answer: Plato is a classical Greek Philosopher and mathematician. He
represents Education Knowledge. And Pleiades is a group of stars named for
the daughter of Atlas in Greek mythology, it represents about astronomy, so
the conclusion is to tell the farmer (Laborer) does not have a chance to learn
any knowledge neither Philosophy nor Astronomy.”

6. What does the fourth Stanza mean?

Answer: the speaker ask question to someone who calls master, which is
addressed to the ruler have an unlimited power.”

7. What does the word “future” with a capital letter symbolize?

Answer: it symbolizes hereafter, life after death”
 1ST STANZA- the poem describes the miserable condition of the
farmer because of the cruelty by his master.

2nd STANZA- the poem illustrates the condition situation when the
farmer should live freely and pursue dream but in fact this farmer lives with
adversity and terrible fear.

3rd STANZA- The poem conveys that there is a big difference between
farmer (laborer) who suffered and the ruler who lived happiness and wealth
furthermore…….

4th STANZA- the speaker satirizes the master to fix their mistakes and
stop their cruelty because God created humans not to act arbitrarily. And in

Last STANZA- the speaker conveys anger tone to the master. He

believes that there will be a judgment day in the future and at the time the
cruel masters have to be responsible for all they have done to the farmer
((lower class)