While Parts II and III seem quite different from each other and, in turn, both have differences in theme, tone, and structure from Part I, both of these final parts of the poem play a complimentary role. Solomon’s immanent presence is no longer assumed and Solomon becomes more of a dream-like figure. The last three lines of the poem give the intimation of an extraction from the insanity. Ginsberg moves from the “you” pronoun to a “we,” meaning that both the writer and reader have entered into a state of altered mind. The last third of the poem comes from the perspective of Solomon’s own insanity. This then moves into a perspective from within “Rockland,” the mental institution, and the reader begins to understand some of the conditions that might drive a person crazy.
The pronoun “you” is used to distinguish the author from Solomon.
The first half of the poem utilizes a vantage point of the author, empathizing with Solomon’s condition. Additionally, the progression of the third part is meant to take the reader on a journey into Carl Solomon’s madness, much as Solomon took Ginsberg into his madness during their friendship in New York. Ginsberg noted that the verse in Part III was supposed to build upon each previous verse. The third part of the poem slowly builds to a crescendo in lines 43-48, before subsiding somewhat in the last four lines of poem, 49-52.
In the poem, Ginsberg names the mental institution Rockland, and the refrain of the third part of the poem is Ginsberg crying to Solomon that: “I’m with you in Rockland!”
Ginsberg met Solomon during a brief stay in the Columbia Presbyterian Psychological Institute in 1949. Part III of “Howl” is the poem’s most direct address to Carl Solomon, the person to whom the poem is dedicated.
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