“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix”

 

    In this line, Ginsberg begins the setting of the poem as dark and dystopian, setting the tone to be quite like “Gotham City”. He emphasizes the social situation of the era. Using the word “starving hysterical naked” Ginsberg described how both people were suffering economically the same time described it to be a social chaos. Ginsberg also hinted the social rights movement going on.

“Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovah’s! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!”

 

    Ginsberg personifies the city as a ‘Moloch’. The term blind windows may refer to people ignoring others struggles and problems. The author also mentions the ‘Moloch’ to have endless skyscrapers defining the city to be very urban and endless Jehovah’s which is a Hebrew term for God. The factories dream and croak in the fog, the author personified the factories and described them to “dream and croak in the fog”, referring the fog to pollution.