John Berryman, 384

John Berryman’s poem numbered 384 is an autobiographical poem about a visit to his father’s grave. We know it is purely autobiographical because he references his father’s suicide, how he killed himself and where it happened. This is too reflective to indicate the speaker is anyone other than Berryman himself. Then why, praytell, does he use his reoccurring character, Henry, in the poem? In the last stanza, he writes, “We’ll tear apart / the mouldering grave clothes ha & then Henry / will heft the ax once more, his final card.” This poem is so obviously about his own father, that I can’t understand why he would use Henry as the speaker.

His tone is bitter, angry. He is raging at his father’s headstone about how he ripped himself out of his life: “I’ve made this awful pilgrimage to one / who cannot visit me, who tore his page out.” He holds such rage for this man that he “spit[s] upon this dreadful banker’s grave.” Moreover, he talks about taking an ax to his casket, tearing it apart, and finally throwing it onto his father. You’d think this source of anger for him would be one he would not want to relive, but Berryman says, “I stand above my father’s grave with rage, / often, often before…I come back for more.” Why come back to this horrible reminder of his father’s suicide? He leaves it flowerless, spits upon it and wishes to completely upheave it.

I think there is no clear answer for such an emotionally wrought piece of literature. I think the purpose Berryman wrote it for was self-cleansing. It also shows us part of his life that influenced him greatly. To ignore something so powerful would be to deny himself a part of his identity. Why does he use Henry? Maybe the issue is so personal that he has to use another speaker to throw off others who aren’t aware of his own personal past. If he never told anyone about his father, no one would suspect this poem was autobiographical at all.