Analysis of Worm Either Way
David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)
If you live along with all the other people
and are just like them, and conform, and are nice
you're just a worm --
and if you live with all the other people
and you don't like them and won't be like them and won't conform
then you're just the worm that has turned,
in either case, a worm.
The conforming worm stays just inside the skin
respectably unseen, and cheerfully gnaws away at the heart of life,
making it all rotten inside.
The unconforming worm -- that is, the worm that has turned --
gnaws just the same, gnawing the substance out of life,
but he insists on gnawing a little hole in the social epidermis
and poking his head out and waving himself
and saying: Look at me, I am not respectable,
I do all the things the bourgeois daren't do,
I booze and fornicate and use foul language and despise your honest man.--
But why should the worm that has turned protest so much?
The bonnie bonnie bourgeois goes a-whoring up back streets just the same.
The busy busy bourgeois imbibes his little share
just the same
if not more.
The pretty pretty bourgeois pinks his language just as pink
if not pinker,
and in private boasts his exploits even louder, if you ask me,
than the other.
While as to honesty, Oh look where the money lies!
So I can't see where the worm that has turned puts anything over
the worm that is too cunning to turn.
On the contrary, he merely gives himself away.
The turned worm shouts. I bravely booze!
the other says. Have one with me!
The turned worm boasts: I copulate!
the unturned says: You look it.
You're a d----- b----- b----- p----- bb-----, says the worm that's turned.
Quite! says the other. Cuckoo!
Scheme | AXB AXCB XDX CDXXAEX XFXFXXGHGX GXXXHXXCE |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111011101010 01111001011 1101 01111101010 01111011110101 11101111 010101 00101110101 010001010010110111 10111001 0111101111 110110010111 110111001010010010 01011101001 0101111110100 111010011011 1101011100011101 11101111111 0101001101111101 010100111101 101 111 01010011110111 1110 001011110101111 1010 1111001110101 111110111111010 011111011 1010011010101 01111101 01011111 0111110 0011111 101111110111 110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,730 |
Words | 306 |
Sentences | 21 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 4, 3, 7, 10, 9 |
Lines Amount | 36 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 208 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 51 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:34 min read
- 75 Views
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"Worm Either Way" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/7908/worm-either-way>.
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