Buffalo Bill’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus

he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

Edward Estlin Cummings was primarily an experimenter and is renowned for his unconventional syntax. His unique style lends novelty to poems. The poems of Cummings are hazy like French paintings. He echoes the paintings in Modernism as characterized by disharmony and discontinuity. On the superficial level, the poem “Buffalo Bill” has the simplicity of a nursery rhyme. “Buffalo Bill’s” appears to be written in a flippant manner. The lines reveal his preoccupation with experimentation, and the lack of space demonstrates a run-on effect that echoes his thirst for freedom of expression. The poet utilizes free verse to mirror the vibrancy of the legend. The poem belongs to the group of poems that uphold individualism.

The title may stand for a contraction that symbolizes the life of Buffalo Bill in a nutshell. The title may also be in the possessive case indicating that the narrative belongs to Bill. The word ‘defunct’ comes across as a portmanteau word that is a cross between deflate and extinct.The closing lines bring out the somber aspect of the poem in the direct address to Death.The poem is more than a tribute to Cowboy Buffalo Bill who died in 1916 as a testament to folk legend. It is a statement on mortality and the ephemeral nature of fame.

William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was an American soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was one of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, and mostly famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872.He was one of the chief riders in the 1860s for the Pony Express Overland Mail Service from St.Joseph to Sacramento, California. He became Scout and Guide in the US army and served through the civil war. During the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway, “Cody undertook to supply the workmen with buffalo meat and in eighteen months he killed 4820 buffaloes.In 1883,he founded the Great Wild West show and toured Europe and the United States with his train. (Wikpedia)

The work “Buffalo Bill’s” embodies a sense of wistfulness, whimsy and sparkle. The work marries satire and sentiment. It perfectly represents his use of eccentric typography, word arrangement, jargon and candid directness of emotion. As one goes through the shape of the poem, it shows an advancement in the first half and a regression in the second. It reflects his advancement in Life verging towards the climax, and then how he loses in the battle to Death. The first part connoting his life shows his inclination towards progressiveness where he was a staunch supporter for the rights of American Indians and women. Though rooted in a raw tradition he supported issues such as Conservation by fighting against hide-hunting. The word “Jesus” is shown to be the high-point of the triangle, the juncture where ‘life’ and ‘death’ meet and is therefore set apart. The first lines show him to be a perfect hero-Insignia of the Invincible, whom death ultimately conquers. The word ’Jesus’ may apply to the preceding line as well as the succeeding line. Earl J. Dias says that the name of Jesus “stands out emphatically in the poem–perhaps as a contrast to Buffalo Bill. Of the two types of individualism implied in the poem–the man of war and the man of peace–I submit that the latter is more akin to Cummings’ basic ideas revealed throughout the body of his writing.”

Death is apostrophized, and the larger-than-life of image of Buffalo Bill is at once condensed as he is served on a platter to Death. And death is asked:

how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

Buffalo Bill was an agent of Death as his main adventure was killing; therefore it appears as though the agent of death is claimed by Death him himself and served on a platter to the Invincible Conqueror. David Ray asserts :” It is important to note, in making a case for the redirection of the poet’s fury to Bill, that Bill, in the poem, functions as a destroyer, an agent of death. What has been destroyed…is rather all-embracing. Bill has been destroyed; the poet’s childhood, and the kind of innocent faith and wonder that went along with it has been destroyed by his subsequent disillusionment…; the clay pigeons have been destroyed. The poet is in many ways blaming Bill for disappointing both his expectations of childhood and of America, for delivering him rather treacherously to a tawdry world of cheapened values, for America is Bill’s “sponsor” as well as that of freedom and breakfast foods.”

“‘Blue-eyed’ may mean ‘one’s favourite one’ and may also connote racial superiority. Cleanth Brooks comments on “the tone of unabashed, unawed, slangy irreverence toward death.” The word ‘defunct’ has the meanings -no longer in effect or use; not operating or functioning. It refers to the fact that he is dead or that he has no utility value now. One wonders why the poet utilized the word ‘defunct’ as it does not endow dignity to the person in question. Perhaps the poet deliberately employs the same colloquial language that cowboys were accustomed to. The lack of spacing in the phrase “onetwothreefourfive” points to the continuity and the pace of his success while he was alive. “Pigeonsjustlikethat” refers to his quickness of acting on impulse . The words moving on without lack of space may also connote the awe and amusement he inspired in the onlookers. The kinetic nature of his life and success is contrasted with the statis in his life. Bill as not a person who whiled away his life in artisticc or philosophical activities but in physical pursuits. Therefore, unlike the former, his physical pursuits do not outlive his death.”Watersmooth-silver / stallion” evocatively puts across his showmanship, and stylistically echoes the idea of smoothly sailing through. The poem is meant to eulogize the titular hero, but somehow the effect turns out to be the opposite.” Thomas Dilworth states:” The speaker clearly admires the showmanship. Instead, he disparages Buffalo Bill merely to exceed him in worth or stature. The poem is a self-portrait of an admiring but also disdainful speaker, unaware of a logical flaw in his reasoning and the profound irony of his situation.”

© Rukhaya MK 2013
The content is the copyright of Rukhaya MK. Any line reproduced from the article has to be appropriately documented by the reader. ©Rukhaya MK. All rights reserved.

References:
Ee cummings A collection of Critical essays 20th Century Critics
from Earl J. Dias, “e. e. cummings And Buffalo Bill.” CEA Critic 29 (Dec. 1966): 6 and 7.
from David Ray, “The Irony of E. E. Cummings.” College English 23 (1962): 287, 289, and 290.