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Assonance

Assonance is a literary technique that involves the repetition of vowel sounds in consecutive or nearby words. Williams uses this technique to help bring a subtle poetic flair to his poem’s otherwise concrete language. In the first stanza, for instance, Williams deploys a short U sound in both the first and second lines:

     so much depends
     upon

The third and fourth stanzas (lines 5–8) also feature assonance, though in these cases the repeating vowel sound repeats only in the first line:

     glazed with rain
     water

     beside the white
     chickens

It’s interesting to note that in both cases quoted here, the word in the second line features the duplicated vowel, but with a slightly different sound quality. Hence, the A sound in “water” doesn’t quite match the long A sound in “glazed” and “rain.” Likewise, the short I sound in “chickens” doesn’t quite match the long I sound in “beside” and “white.” We readers may not register these connected vowels with our ears, but we certainly notice them with our eyes. Given that Williams avoids sonic flourishes like rhyme and alliteration, these brief and subtle moments of assonance bring a subtle poetic quality to an otherwise image-focused poem.

Enjambment

Enjambment (en-JAM-ment) refers to the technique in which one poetic line flows continuously to the next without stopping. Notably, every line in “The Red Wheelbarrow” is enjambed. This makes sense insofar as the poem consists of a single sentence. That said, if the same sentence were written in prose, two commas would be required to set off the qualifying clauses in the poem’s second half:

     So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens.

Williams avoids using these commas for two reasons. First, the stanza structure allows readers to imply the necessary pauses. Second, the additional punctuation would compromise the poem’s visual purity, which consists solely of lower-case letters. But Williams’s use of enjambment has an additional effect that’s easy to miss. Reconsider the prose version of the poem, written above. Note how the poem features two compound nouns: “wheelbarrow” and “rainwater.” Though typically written as a single word, Williams splits them across the line breaks (lines 3–6):

     a red wheel
     barrow

     glazed with rain
     water

This choice simplifies the language by avoiding longer compounds. But it also creates unexpected meaning. For instance, to split “wheelbarrow” into two words invites us to think about a barrow (i.e., a burial mound) for wheels—an image that evokes a sense of loss and even death.

Juxtaposition

When used in the context of literary analysis, juxtaposition (JUK-stuh-puh-ZIH-shun) refers to instances where two ideas, concepts, or images are placed next to each other. Williams uses juxtaposition to powerful effect in “The Red Wheelbarrow,” the final three stanzas of which place three images side by side (lines 3–8):

     a red wheel
     barrow

     glazed with rain
     water

     beside the white
     chickens

Williams uses juxtaposition in two distinct ways here. Most obviously, he’s presenting us with a very literal image of juxtaposition: a red wheelbarrow is situated “beside” some chickens. But things get more complex when we recall that Williams has inserted another image between those of the wheelbarrow and the chickens: namely, the glaze of rainwater. Though formally juxtaposed in the stanza structure of the poem, the image of the rainwater glaze in fact belongs to the wheelbarrow. That is, it’s the wheelbarrow that is “glazed with rain / water.” However, the speaker’s observation of this glaze is slightly displaced in time, suggesting that on the level of perception, the speaker experiences the glaze separately from the wheelbarrow. Read in this way, Williams’s use of juxtaposition conveys important information about how the speaker perceives the world: not as a unified whole, but as a series of disarticulated images.

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