Literature review: Poem “The Final Hour” by Yevgeniy Yevtushenko
The first thought after reading the poem is a doubt. Will there really be an end and liberation? Is there really anything out there greater than every day routine, and is there really anything beyond just striving to survive in everyday world? The struggle for resources that are becoming more and more scarce and the rat-race everyone has to participate in trying to catch up to today’s world pace is voiding a human of anything for the soul. In fact to the point that the human is not a soul, but a mere number, an account, an employee, a customer, and as a poet compares a man to a simple receipt from the Housing Board. It seems like the utility bills never end coming in and every day is repetative in order to pay those receipts. It seems like there are hardly any letters anymore from anyone, but the receipts and advertisements never stop coming. The world seems depersonalised and a human soul becomes like that of a crumbled utility slip in the universe.
The poem is written by a Russian dissident poet Yevgeniy Yevtushenko, who experienced living in a great empire of USSR, and its size and population. I can associate with his thinking as a person is a mere fleck of dust on a big scale of big country’s history and plans as I have experience living in China. Millions put their lives working towards USSR successes and victories with no special legacy or memory of their existence. The big country system utilizes an individual and credits the profit to itself with no shame.
The way Dr. Yevtushenko compares a man to a single reciept from a Housing Board is very interesting. For many years the state owned all the property through the Housing Boards in Russia. Nothing belonged to a man. Thus, anything could be taken away from the man anytime. That draws a picture of greyness, sameness of all men just like that of utility bills. They are necessary, they exist, they must, yet noone is mentioning whether they want to be. The author expresses a hope: is this really all there is or is there anything better? I think he also expresses boredom with the state of things and desire for a change of greyness with a ray of light. We all know that it is easier to live through things if there is at least a glimpse of hope for the change for the better. Yet, when the result is the same no matter what you do and how hard you try, it is worthless to even make any efforts. I feel the author longs for there to be some kind of hope for eternity, for the meaning, something that makes a man a living soul, and not a crumbled, used and useless Housing Board reciept in the cosmos.
