Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson is about an extremely rich man who wallows in luxury but finally commits suicide. The poem brings home the gritty reality that rich people are not always happy.
Richard Cory has every reason to be happy. The poet describes him as a perfect gentleman:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
The word "gentleman" also suggests that he belonged to the gentry or the upper class. He also possesses an aura of royalty around him which makes people look at him with a sense of awe and admiration.
Further, Richard Cory is described as a person with "common touch" or humanity:
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
Unlike some 'newly rich' people, Richard Cory does not wear flashy clothes. Instead, he is 'quietly arrayed'. He is also not arrogant like some of them as his talk is marked with a sense of humanity. However, when he says 'good morning', people seem to feel nervous with 'fluttering pulses'. This suggests that although Richard Cory moves with the common man, there still seems to be some distance between them, an unbridgeable gap that had made it difficult for him to develop any deeper kind of relationship with them - a factor which may have contributed to his unhappiness and to his ultimate suicide.
The workers, including the narrator, on the other hand, go without meat or bread and they work like slaves in Richard Cory's factory. They naturally envy Richard who is richer than a 'king' and wish that they were in his place. Thus they are shocked to hear about his death:
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Although Richard Cory lived like king and rode on popularity, the lack of any deeper human relationship in the form of a lover or close friend might have made him lonely and fed up with life which finally led to his suicide. Thus, the poem Richard Cory belies the myth that the rich are happy.
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