Hotel Room, 12th Floor (Scottish Highers English): Revision Notes

Hotel Room, 12th Floor

Overview

MacCaig's poem explores themes of suffering and violence in Manhattan, New York. Written in free verse, the poem reveals his negative opinion of city living and questions whether society has advanced at the same rate as the technology around us.

The poem presents a conflict between civilisation and savagery, between light and dark. Darkness represents the savage and violent nature of human beings, which has not changed since the days of the Wild West. This presents a bleak view where the thread of violence in our history remains unbroken despite advancements in other aspects of life.

An important shift occurs from past tense (describing the morning) to present tense in stanza one, line 6, signalling that midnight has arrived.

Context: the Western film genre

MacCaig makes repeated references to Western films throughout the poem. This comparison shows that the conflict between civilisation and savagery depicted in these films is not over, and that humanity continues to face this fight against savagery.

The title

The title 'Hotel Room, 12th Floor' conveys how impersonal and generic the speaker's hotel is. Without the reference to New York landmarks, the hotel room could be in any modern, high-rise city. It has no individual character or warmth, hinting at MacCaig's negative views of what the city offers. The elevated position twelve storeys up isolates the persona from the action unfolding 120 feet below them, establishing the speaker's role as a distant observer.

Stanza one

Opening observation

Stanza one begins as a first-person, past-tense account. The speaker describes looking out of their hotel room window across a bright and modern Midtown Manhattan. The first five lines use humour to make dismissive comments about technological advancements and accomplishments of modern America, focusing on New York's skyscrapers and a helicopter tracking across the skyline.

The Pan Am Building (now the MetLife Building) and the Empire State Building were symbols of America's wealth, power and international influence. Using them as the backdrop for the violence that follows shows that despite material advancements, humans remain as violent and brutish as they have always been.

Although the initial images are light-hearted, they hint at the pain and horror that will follow.

Line-by-line analysis

Line 1

The phrase 'This morning' establishes the time of day when the initial observations were made. This creates structural significance, as later the persona will contrast impressions of the city during the day with the city at night. A sense of immediacy is created, suggesting that the themes of the poem need to be addressed rapidly. The phrase 'I watched' makes clear the persona's role as observer, creating a spectator status that isolates the persona from danger but also creates helplessness later, as they cannot do anything but listen to the aggression and violence unfold beneath them.

Line 2

The poet uses a simile to make a light-hearted comparison between a helicopter and a 'damaged insect'. The similarity of noise, movement and size (when compared to the colossal Empire State Building) between a helicopter and an insect is clear. However, 'damaged' introduces unpleasant connotations. MacCaig uses this disparaging humour to show how he fails to comprehend the high-tech world around him. The helicopter is a sign of wealth and power, and the speaker's dismissal of it as an inferior form of something found in nature shows his disdain towards material excess.

Lines 3 and 4

The association with pain in 'damaged insect' continues as the poet compares the Empire State Building to a 'jumbo size dentist's drill'. The Empire State Building is a 102-storey art deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan that stood as the world's tallest building between 1931 and 1975, a symbol of progress and achievement.

The comparison is humorously derisive, showing how unimpressed the speaker is with New York City. Both the 'damaged insect' and 'the dentist's drill' are connected to suffering, foreshadowing the change of tone that follows. By reducing both the helicopter to the size of an insect and the world's tallest building to the size of a dentist's drill, MacCaig pokes fun at the American belief that bigger is better.

Line 5

Another iconic Midtown skyscraper is referenced, revealing the destination of the helicopter. The Pan Am Building was the worldwide headquarters of Pan American World Airways and represents America's connectedness to, and influence over, the rest of the world. Another symbol of wealth and excess, the roof of the Pan Am Building had a helipad from which wealthy New Yorkers could be flown to nearby JFK airport.

Line 6

MacCaig's initial mocking tone of disdain turns to one of anxiety. Line 6 marks a change in tone and a move from past tense to present tense, marking the arrival of nighttime. The word 'but' signals this change. Midnight is associated with fear and darkness. MacCaig wants readers to see references to darkness as interchangeable with savagery. This change in time, tense and tone shows that the speaker will now deal with the more sinister side of the city, linking to common portrayals of New York as crime ravaged during this period. The looming personification of midnight is strengthened with the phrase 'has come in', making the savagery sound invasive, unwelcome and powerful.

Line 7

Fear of the unknown is employed as the speaker suggests the darkness has come in 'from foreign places' and is described as 'uncivilised darkness'.

"midnight has come in from foreign places"

The words 'foreign', 'uncivilised' and 'darkness' represent the primitive, brutal violence and fear present in city life and, perhaps more troublingly, in the heart of humanity.

Lines 8 and 9

The idea of conflict continues as we see the fight between light and dark, between civilisation and savagery. The word 'lit' contrasts the darkness as it tries to fight back against the uncivilised invader. The word 'shot', as if firing a gun, is the first of several references to Wild West movie tropes throughout the poem, highlighting that violence has always been part of human history and will continue to be so.

Even the million electric lights of surrounding buildings are not enough to combat humanity's more destructive desires.

Stanza two

Overview of nighttime violence

Stanza two explores the city at night and extends the comparison to the Wild West. The stanza is packed with disturbing images and sounds as the persona lies in bed listening to the conflict unfold on the streets beneath them. Human suffering and fear dominate. Civilisation seems overwhelmed by savagery in this stanza, suggesting that society is beyond redemption.

Line-by-line analysis

Lines 1 and 2

Line 1 continues to focus on the fight between civilisation and savagery that started with the word 'shot' in the previous stanza. The word 'But' is used again to develop the idea that midnight is not easily conquered. Despite humanity's best intentions to curb the violence and suffering that pervade the city, the savagery persists. Placing the word 'not' at the end of line 1 emphasises the pessimistic tone and suggests the city may be beyond redemption. The extended metaphor continues, likening the violence on the streets to the violence of the Wild West as settlers struggled to wrestle control of the frontier from the indigenous population.

Lines 2 and 3

The persona's position as helpless spectator is confirmed as they are described as lying in bed listening to the terrifying sounds below. Parenthesis shows they are lying 'between a radio and a television set'. The radio and television represent the technology that surrounds us within the cityscape but also suggest the persona may be using them to drown out the noises from the streets below. This technology is juxtaposed with the Wild West scene that follows, showing that although technology has advanced, the fight between civilisation and savagery remains unresolved.

Line 4

Line 4 describes the disruptive noise from the street that the speaker can hear despite being twelve storeys up. The Wild West imagery continues, making a direct link to humanity's predisposition to violence that has not changed since frontier times. The modern city is directly linked with the 'uncivilised' Wild West.

The word 'ululating', with its use of assonance on the letter 'u' and the repetition of 'l', does much the same. This onomatopoeic word describes the long, wavering, high-pitched 'woo-woo-woo' sound that Native Americans would make when riding into battle or communicating over large distances.

Line 5

Line 5 brings together the setting of an old frontier battleground with the modern alleyways and city streets of New York. The speaker describes the noises echoing through the 'glittering canyons and gulches'. The canyons, reminiscent of old Western films, are now 'glittering', showing the material wealth and affluence of the city. However, the sophisticated, glass-clad buildings of the modern city remain as canyons where ambushes and violent attacks are sprung. The alliteration of 'g' in line 5 ties the idea together.

Lines 6 and 7

The extent of the violence is summed up as the speaker describes the emergency services noisily 'racing' to the 'broken bones'.

"police cars and ambulances racing to the broken bones"

The verb 'racing' shows how urgent, serious and critical the injuries are, as they must be attended to immediately. The use of the plural 'police cars' and 'ambulances' shows the degree of widespread conflict and how many people are affected. The phrase 'broken bones' shows the severity of the injuries and dehumanises the victims, as they are represented only by their injuries. The failure to describe or recognise the people affected by this 'war' shows how desensitised society has become to the cycle of violence, revealing a more callous side to city life. The alliteration of the plosive sound 'b' in 'broken bones' further develops this sense of brutality.

Lines 7 and 8

The list continues and the idea of suffering develops further as we are told of the 'harsh screaming / from coldwater flats'.

"harsh screaming from coldwater flats"

The disembodied screams of unseen individuals are chilling and continue the poet's use of synecdoche, as victims are reduced to being little more than broken body parts, screams and spilt bodily fluids. The phrase 'coldwater flats' describes more primitive apartments that do not have access to hot water. This image of scarcity starkly contrasts the lavishness observed in stanza one of helicopters and skyscrapers, and subtly alludes to the main cause of the city's violence: poverty.

The poem questions whether New York can really call itself a civilised and modern society if only some of its residents benefit from the advances for which it is celebrated.

Lines 8 and 9

The final image is of 'blood / glazed on sidewalks'. Enjambment at the end of line 8 emphasises the blood and shows the true cost of the savagery. While the skyscrapers are glazed with glass, the sidewalk (or pavement) is glazed with blood, a lasting reminder of the injured people who have now been taken away by police or paramedics.

The word choice of 'glazed' makes the reader think of the shiny wet puddles of blood that indelibly mark the sidewalk. A glaze makes it seem like the blood will be there for a long time, reminding us that America was founded in bloodshed and that the violence, which is part of all humanity, was there in the past and is still there today.

Stanza three

Pessimistic conclusion

The last stanza is a strongly pessimistic conclusion, highlighting that savagery, an inherent part of human nature, is within us. Even surrounded by the great symbols of American society, we are no more civilised than in the days of the Wild West. The poem leaves us with a sense of hopelessness and despair. No matter what trappings society offers us and no matter how advanced we become, humanity will remain a violent species, and suffering, especially amongst the poor and less fortunate, will continue.

Line-by-line analysis

Lines 1 and 2

The final stanza consists of two negative statements. The first is that 'The frontier is never / somewhere else'. This extends the Wild West metaphor where the frontier was described as the dangerous boundary between the civilised world and the unknown. The idea that this boundary is not a geographical one, but that the frontier actually exists within us all, represents a constant personal battle to nullify our capacity for savagery and violence. The frontier exists anywhere that there are people. In a city, this frontier is 'never somewhere else' as we are constantly surrounded by other people.

Lines 2 and 3

MacCaig offers no solution. The use of the negative words 'never' in line 1 and 'no' in line 2 shows how pessimistic and anxious he feels about the nature of human beings living in supposedly civilised and prosperous societies.

Even this fails to keep the 'midnight out'. As he has done throughout the poem, MacCaig uses midnight and darkness to represent savagery and violence. His conclusion is the pessimistic view that humanity, despite its many advances, will always be led astray by our more uncivilised and basic human instincts.

Key themes

Isolation

The speaker is isolated from the streets of New York. Those suffering the effects of poverty have been isolated from wider society and become victims of their environment. The elevated hotel room creates physical distance, while the radio and television create barriers to the sounds of violence below.

Violence

The poem shows that regardless of our technological advances, we have not been able to escape the more primitive and violent urges that have plagued society for generations. The speaker listens to and imagines the violence taking place on the city streets around them as darkness falls. The comparison to the Wild West suggests this violence is timeless and unchanging.

Poverty

The contrast between the conspicuous wealth of the city by day and the stark poverty that the nighttime exposes shows that prosperity is not shared equally across the city. Violence disproportionately affects those in poverty who are already vulnerable. The 'coldwater flats' stand in stark opposition to the wealth symbolised by helicopters and skyscrapers.

The human condition

The poem shows that humankind's propensity for conflict and savagery was with us in Wild West times and remains with us today. It is an unfortunate symptom of the human condition. The final stanza suggests that this violent nature exists within all of us, and no amount of civilisation or technological advancement can eliminate it.