The Real Richard Cory

The pavement people did not know anything about the real Richard Cory. They believed he was happy, due to the fact he had money. Richard Cory sure seemed happy or content with his life style, but he was actually unhappy with his life. The moment Richard killed himself creates a sense of confusion yet realization. By looking at this moment of imagery and the opposition of what the townspeople know about him to what the townspeople don’t know about Richard, in addition to the structure of the ABAB rhyme scheme we see that the reason Richard killed himself is because he was alone and he had no one. This leads us to understand that one’s appearance towards other people can be deceiving.
The usage of words such as ‘we’ or ‘he’ shows the distance between the people and Richard. With the poem being from 1st person narration shows the people never really knew him and chose not to get to know him because they believe he was a rich and rich people do not associate with poorer people. The perspective the poorer people have of Richard is that he supposedly has everything,
The opposition is what is said in the poem to what is not said about Richard.
“And he was rich--- yes, richer than a king--- and abmirably schooled in every grace: in fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.” (Robinson 9-12) the townspeople only see Richard for his money and other materialistic things. The townspeople refer to him as a king, Richard is a regular human being but because people think about the amount of money he has they don’t associate with him.
The irony in the poem is shocking. the first 14 lines are all about good materialistic things about him but when you read the last 2 lines you don’t expect for him to kill himself because he seemed so happy.
“So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer