¶ … Terror of Hospital Bills
The Element of Fear in James Wright's "In Terror of Hospital Bills"
In his poem, "In Terror of Hospital Bills," James Wright paints a bleak picture of a life in which neither the present nor the future hold much in the way of hope. Instead, the poem's speaker contemplates his dwindling resources while imagining what his life will entail when he is homeless, destitute, and living in fear of the eventuality that he will grow sick. Isolated from his heritage, family, and the people from whom he will soon have to beg, the speaker still relishes being alive, and yet is virtually crippled by fear that his prospects will only worsen.
Fear permeates Wright's poem in every detail and nuance from the opening lines in which the speaker states that he still has "some money" (Wright 1), the implication being that soon he will not have anything. While not yet totally impoverished, the speaker has...
This fear stems not only from his pervasive hunger and thirst but from the knowledge that his total poverty is imminent. This realization causes further fright in the speaker as he imagines himself a beggar resigned to telling lies for small change. "What words to beg money with?" (8) he asks, well-aware that he is on a trajectory that begins with panhandling and will eventually lead to more desperate acts. Violence is implicit in these future acts as he considers how he will "stalk timid strangers/on the whorehouse corners" (15-16), illustrating that he will have no other recourse than to inhabit the margins of society.
Wright uses terse language and short sentences to create a sense of urgency in the reader which mirrors that of the speaker. Knowing that his funds are limited and that the line separating him from an existence in which he must "beg…
