Two Scavengers...Two Beauties

Ferlinghetti’s poem “Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes” depicts San Francisco as a place of economic opportunity and daily interaction among its socially divided classes.

One of the most easily noticeable elements of the poem is how it is visually organized. The lines alternate from the left to the right side of the page, creating a visual representation of the opposition of the “Scavengers” and the “Beautiful People.” Like the two cars at the stop sign, the opposing lines of the text pull together, making it hard to distinguish which is which. For the time they are stopped at the red light, these two very different types of San Franciscans come into contact with each other and for a second their realities seem impermanent.  While the cars are together at the red light, the scavengers gaze at a "odorless TV ad" for what Ferlinghetti makes out to be the perfect lifestyle.  Clearly the men want to transcend their scavenger status and live life as one of the “beautiful people.” No longer would the men have to scavenge around together, wearing red plastic blazers; they could leisurely ride with whom they choose, in real blazers.  The poem ends with a bit of uncertainty, and left me wondering when and how the cars left--who pulled away first and who got ahead?  I suppose he wants us to choose our own destiny.

Despite the distance between the two couples in this poem, it seems like Ferlinghetti is trying to promote San Francisco as the land that the many envision America to be—a place of freedom and economic opportunity. As he mentions in the last lines of the text, it is the “high seas/of this democracy” that enables fluidity between classes that make it seem as though “anything at all [is] possible” (60).  Wasn't he just complaining in the earlier pages about the new, yuppie lifestyle San Francisco has grown into?