18 pages • 36 minutes read
Donald HallOx Cart Man
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1977A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Cart
The cart in “Ox Cart Man” symbolizes the natural cycle of the man’s life and livelihood. The man has gone through the same cycle year after year and has developed a method to make it most efficient and in alignment with the seasons. At the beginning of the poem, the man packs the cart to the brim with all the things he will take to market. However, the man is not precious about the cart or attached to it; instead, “when the cart is empty he sells the cart” (Line 16). He views the cart as a means to get his wares to the market, and once he has sold everything, it is just another item to get rid of, so that he does not have to drag it home. The final lines of the poem show the man as he “saw planks / building the cart again” (Lines 24-25): The man annually rebuilds the cart. Each of these carts does not inherently carry metaphorical weight, but the idea of the cart operates as a part of the man’s yearly cycle of preparation, labor, harvest, and sales.
The Ox
The Ox represents both the difficulty of the man’s labor and, similarly to the cart, the perpetual cycle of his work. A hefty animal with the capacity to tow large loads, the ox carries a packed cart full of items for ten days, as the man walks together next to it to market. Significantly, the man does not choose a horse or other animal to pull his cart—the ox is the methodical, slow, and steady creature best suited to his task. Though we learn that the man has raised the ox, he sells the ox, harness, and yoke without sentimentality. He has prepared for this loss: When he arrives home, he “stitches new harness / for next year’s ox in the barn, / and carves the yoke” (Lines 22-24). The ox’s ability to procreate makes it part of the natural cycle.
Firelight
The final stanza describes the man “at home by fire’s light in November cold” (Line 21). While the man is alone, the fire represents hope at the end of the season, and a look toward the future. The poem ends as the man is “building the cart again” (Line 25), engaging in what could be the drudgery of another year of repetitive work, but he does so in the warm light of the fire, drawing on its comfort during the cold winter. Hall emphasizes the creation of something new, suggesting that even in repetition, practiced craft can produce new things, and the subtle images of light, the new harness, and the new life of “next year’s ox in the barn” (Line 23) combine to evoke feelings of satisfaction after a year of hard work, and an acknowledgement of the work in the year to come.
