Allen Ginsberg's response to a post-war America is powerful and rebellious, challenging the values of ordinary American citizens and addressing the issues of McCarthyism, consumerism and capitalism that enclose him, in a corrupted American society where Ginsberg and fellow beat writers, and visionary artists were not valued. Ginsberg is never subtle like the wind, but wild and raging like a storm, and consequently so is his "Howl" to America. .
At the time of "Howl", Ginsberg finds himself in a society concerned with possessions, conformity and establishing itself as a world super power in the destruction of other nations, by entering world wars involuntarily, and ending as the victor. America does not care about visionary literature or art that contradicts the image it sells to the hungry masses, but Ginsberg provides a salvation, a light in the darkest of places. .
He confronts many of the problems hidden behind the flag of a post-war America, starting on his own doorstep. Ginsberg believed that love could save all, restore hope, and revive the soul when it seemed to be dead, like his love for Carl Solomon restored his own hope in "Howl". This is his response to America: that all can be saved, and he does this by challenging America's own beliefs about the soul.
To America, the soul is unimportant, simply another thing to trade for a "blue automobile" or a box of cornflakes. This consumerism is apparent, glaring at us from the pages of "America", "Howl" and "Sunflower Sutra", a reflection of the world outside. America is drowning in its own excrement. The sunflower, once beautiful is ruined, and personified as Christ wearing a "battered crown" to show the effect consumerism has on humanity, that the people of America are willing to sacrifice nature for a temporary "fix". Ginsberg uses repulsive personification to show his personal disgust at America's dirty habits. America as a country could be paralleled with Ginsberg's "Moloch" and in turn, each individual blinded by materialistic passion, painting an image of a monster with "dusty loveless eyes", "blood running money", a "skin of machinery" and a soul of "electricity and banks".
