Essay, Research Paper: Money: An Introductory Lecture H Nemerov

Money: An Introductory Lecture
by Howard Nemerov
This piece is, on the surface, an analysis of the
symbols on an Indian head nickel. However, these
analyzations can themselves be analyzed for
further meaning which subtly attacks the very
foundations of America. The nickel itself is a
symbol of American modernization and
industrialization, representing greed, power,
ambition, and expansion.
Nemerov starts with the back. He notices first how
oppressed and burdened the bison, which is a
symbol for nature and the American wilderness in
general, appears to be. He is "hunchbacked . . .
bending his head and curling his tail," but, as
Nemerov implies, this is not simply to make him
fit on the coin. It symbolizes how the technology
of non-native Americans caused the bison, as a
population, to buckle, and, as mentioned in line
33, nearly break, crushed almost to the point of
extinction. Indeed, the edges of the nickel appear
to be crushing the bison from either end, pressing
against its head and rump. The government, Nemerov
is saying, feels that nothing must stand in its
way. It owns all and has rights to all; even the
wild and free-roaming bison are stamped with the
bold title, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The bison is also slapped with the motto e
pluribus unum ("from many, one"), because the
government feels everything must do its part for
America. The bison, it is saying, must make
sacrifices for the greater good of progress. This
is all a hoax according to Nemerov, because most
Americans don't even understand the motto. He says
e pluribus unum means "an indeterminately large
number of things/All of which are the same,"
meaning that while Americans know the motto has
something to do with freedom and the American way,
many of them don't really know what it means, and
that it actually contributes to the suffering of
many who wish to be free within America, such as
the bison.
The FIVE CENTS written under the bison's feet is
to me reminiscent of a price tag. Despite the huge
cost to the bison population, the economic gain to
the United States through the slaughter of the
animals was almost naught. Yet the United States
still felt the need to conquer the bison for its
own gain.
On the other side of the nickel is an American
Indian. Nemerov shows the Indian's anonymity by
referring to him as "a man with long hair/And a
couple of feathers in the hair," instead of a more
personal description, and by mentioning that "he
wears the number nineteen-thirty-six," implying
that he is only identified by number, not by name.
This numbering is suggestive of the numbers
tattooed on the arms of Jews in Nazi concentration
camps, an idea that is reinforced in line 31 when
the concentration camps are directly compared to
reservations.
Nemerov suggests in lines 19 and 20 that the
government beckons the Indians with a skewed
version of liberty, telling them to live on
reservations in the name of peace and freedom. The
Indian, though, is smart. He does not acknowledge
this poor mock-up of liberty, for "to notice it,
indeed, would be shortsighted of him." Instead, he
examines his future, and sees that he must fight.
Like the bison, the word liberty is "bent/To
conform with the curve of the rim," as the idea of
liberty has been bent to fit the the designs of
the federal government. The Indian realizes that
the liberty is not to be his, but is in fact the
liberty of the whites who want his land, and their
liberty is his oppression.
This corruption of liberty is further suggested by
Nemerov's mention that it is "falling out of the
sky Y first," meaning that liberty is apparently
becoming a less and less important value in
American society. Perhaps the "Y first" means that
no one is even stopping to ask "why" anymore, to
question or rebel against anything anymore, as per
the "ancient" American tradition. Benjamin
Franklin once suggested that instead of e pluribus
unum our motto ought to be "Rebellion to Tyrants
is Obedience to God." "What happened to this, the
American way?" Nemerov asks.
Nemerov goes on to discuss why the symbols are
still important as symbols, though as facts they
are obsolete. All the remaining Indians'
"relations with liberty are maintained with
reservations," he says, meaning both that they
live on reservations and that they regard America,
represented by "liberty," warily and
reproachfully. The bison, Nemerov says, is nearly
extinct. He then alludes to Ode on a Grecian Urn
by John Keats, in which the poet marvels that
while the actual things depicted on the urn are
long gone, their images remain unchanged, and
their meanings are just as powerful.
Nemerov finishes up with a few final observations
about the nickel. He first notes that the bison
and Indian are on opposite sides of the coin, face
different directions, and are upside-down to one
another. They can coexist, interfering with one
another only when necessary. There is a mutual
respect between them, and they can see beyond
their differences: "the bison [looks] past/The
Indian's feathers, the Indian past the bison's
tail . . . ." This is something much of the rest
of America and the world needs to learn to do. The
idea of respect for the bison is hammered home
when Nemerov points out that the bison has a face
"somewhat resembling that of Jupiter Ammon," a god
universal to many ancient cultures including the
Romans (Jupiter) and the Egyptians (Ammon-Ra).
This poem shows that some of the injustices of
America are so hammered in that we do not even
notice that we are creating things which justify
them. It would be an interesting exercise to look
for symbols ingrained in other everyday items. We
may be surprised, even appalled, at what we turn
up. But I cannot think of many things which would
have as