When you find yourself in an environment full of stimulation, population, and activity, you may begin to feel the desire to escape or detach yourself from civilization. Such environments, particularly urban cities, often consist of a variety of tall buildings, containing numerous small living spaces. Such buildings are overcrowded and congested with residents and soon evolved into human colonies or hives. Living in a beehive may seem like it offers a cramped and cluttered lifestyle, but it can also create an emerging sense of self-awareness. In Jean Toomer's poem, Beehive, the use of imagery, analogies, metaphors, and characters promotes connections between rural and urban spaces and suggests that urban space has the potential to encourage self-reflection. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Natural imagery is used in vivid descriptions of modern urban life as the speaker observes the vibrant world around him. Analogies between packed buildings and their inhabitants such as beehives and their bees are used to describe the chaos of everyday citizens as they metaphorically produce honey for the honeycomb of the global capital. Also included is a person, intoxicated by the sweetness of such honey, who desires the peace and serenity of rural space. Critics favor Toomer's readiness for the “loneliness and melancholy of simply being one among millions” (Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, The Paris Review) as well as Toomer's “effective strategy of weakening the speaker's position” by using a “type of self-reflexive speaker” (Daniela Kukrechtova, De-Symbolized Lyrical Cityscapes of Jean Toomer, Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams and Gwendolyn Brooks). The aura of loneliness and desolation remains constant as the speaker describes his desire to escape urban civilization in a self-reflexive manner. Jean Toomer immediately describes vivid images of the eternal bustle of bees as they work in their hive: "There swarm a million bees... bees coming in and out of the moon... silver bees buzzing intently." As the bees make their way through their hive, physical imagery is applied as the speaker looks at them. The speaker, a “drone” (male bee), describes his current physical state: “Lying on his back, lips honey,” indicating a sense of solitude and relaxation. When the speaker is in this physical state, he begins to develop a desire to “fly past the moon” and “curl forever in some distant backyard flower.” The natural images of the graceful moon and the desolate farmyard flower are used to describe the speaker's need for openness to nature in rural space, while the physical images of flying far away and comfortably curling up in a ball are used to express desperation and the speaker's urgency to break away from urban civilization and find solitary peace. There seems to be a shift in imagery as the speaker chooses to describe his own desires instead of continuing to describe the urban chaos around him, such a shift likely caused by the speaker's condensed environment. The shifting of images “also reveals a shift in the speaker's consciousness from spiritual identification to spiritual alienation” (Robert B. Jones, The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer). Therefore, the speaker's emotional and spiritual transition is made more recognizable through the use of various images of urban confusion and rural quiet. The most prominent use of analogy in this poem includes a beehive and an urban city. Toomer describes the city as a “black hive,” which immediately gives off a racial perspective. Toomer composed Beehive while in residencein Washington DC in the early 1920s, a predominantly African-American city at that time. Therefore, the “black hive” analogy is relevant to the speaker's observations, as African Americans appeared to be the primary racial group in urban environments during the time the poem was written. The term “hive” can be defined as “an artificial receptacle used to house a swarm of bees” (Collins Dictionary). The human hive described by Toomer in this poem exhibits the same qualities, as metropolitan apartments are man-made and used to house numerous individuals at once. The analogy between a hive and its bees and a crowded apartment and its inhabitants “describes null life as equivalent to the mass mental activity of bees who accept their worker function within the collective without question or struggle” (Chezia Thompson-Cager, Jean Toomer's Teaching Stick, 1923). In other words, the analogy expresses the weariness, helplessness, and worldliness that the speaker finds himself in while observing the routine of numerous city workers. The tiredness, fatigue, and congestion that the speaker notes seem to affect his outlook on city life. After observing the “bees going in and out of the moon,” he begins to feel the need to “fly beyond the moon” and escape the “wax cell” of the world he finds himself in. The speaker also has honey-colored lips, “a precious product of the work of the hive” (Gerry Carlin, Reading 'Cane' by Jean Toomer). Toomer seems to use honey as a possible metaphor for “culture or love, or community and the riches contained in social relationships” (Gerry Carlin, Reading Jean Toomer's 'Cane'). Toomer uses rural metaphors, such as beehives, bees, and honey, to describe aspects of urban environments, such as apartments, the working class, and culture. Thus the analogies and metaphors of urban environments bring great emotion to the speaker and allow him to become more contemplative, as a connection is also created between rural and urban spaces. The use of persona becomes present in Toomer's use of a first-person perspective. The character identifies himself as a “drone,” a lazy, lazy male bee. The drone lies on its back and watches the hard-working bees as honey drips from its mouth. As the drone observes the urban modernization around him, he begins to develop feelings of unhappiness and unease. A moment of self-reflection arises, when "he realizes that lying on his back and licking honey does not satisfy him completely" (Daniela Kukrechtova, De-Symbolized Lyrical Cityscapes of Jean Toomer, Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams and Gwendolyn Brooks). He longs for the simplicity and naturalness of the countryside, as the city seems to be “artificial, forced, and sterile” (Tania Friedel, Racial Discourse and Cosmopolitanism in Twentieth Century African American Writing). Toomer uses the persona of a drone to express his desire for eternal freedom, be it psychological, racial, or environmental. As the drone lies on its back and observes the city, it “feels the effects of industrialism” and becomes self-contemplative as it “struggles to find an identity in the modern world” (Kevin R. Raczinski, Jean Toomer, Sherwood Anderson and the Complexity of modern black consciousness). The drone gets drunk on “silver honey,” “a representation of the money that is generated as a result of the incessant exploitative activity of the 'bees'” (Zac Ben Hamad, Black Urbanization: Adapting to Social Advancement), which he seems use to distract himself from his need for quiet unity. However, the silver honey does not pacify him, as he continues to feel alienated, fractured, and displaced. The self-reflexive force of urban space is therefore overwhelming, since intoxication cannot eliminate the secret thoughts in which.