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“The Red Wheelbarrow” appears to take place in the countryside. Although the speaker doesn’t convey this directly, their references to a wheelbarrow and chickens suggest as much. Wheelbarrows are tools used primarily for agricultural labor, which typically occurs in rural locations. The presence of chickens likewise implies a rural location, and possibly even a farm. That said, it isn’t clear whether the speaker is observing the wheelbarrow and the chickens directly, in real time. They could, by contrast, be looking at a photograph. Alternatively, they could be recalling a distinct memory from their youth. These possibilities raise an important question about when the poem takes place. Williams wrote the poem in 1923, so we could interpret it as being set in that year. But what’s more important than locating the poem in a specific year is the more general understanding of the speaker’s sense of time. When the speaker insists that “so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow” (lines 1–4), they are likely expressing sentimental and even nostalgic feelings about rural life. That is, they are likely thinking about the past, and about a rustic simple life that, for many reasons, is no longer so simple.

Next section Themes

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