Source Assignment. Read the poem below by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Have you known and envied someone like Richard Cory, a person everyone thought had it all? What happened to him or her? What did you discover about your impression of the person? Analyze the poem and draw on experience as you write a personal response essay to compare and contrast the person you knew with Richard Cory.
Richard Cory
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.