Moloch in Metropolis

In Part II of Ginsberg’s poem “Howl,” the word Moloch comes up to represent all that is bad or evil. Though oftentimes Moloch is associated with the Bible as an evil angel, Moloch also could be making a connection to the silent film Metropolis. The film is set in an industrial city and explores the dystopia of workers and owners in factories. After an accidental machine explosion in a factory that kills some of the workers, the protagonist starts to see the machine as a beast, which he calls Moloch. In the movie there are two classes of people: the workers and the oweners.  The workers live underground, while the owner live in the skyscrapers. Ginsberg makes reference to this: “Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovas!” Drawing from the movie, Ginsberg is associating evil with the skyscrapers, which represent the authority figures. Therefore government, factories, and money are all evil figures that impose lifestyles on the comman man like the owners imposed hard work on the factory workers in the film.