Also, the "old sith avenue el" refers to an old elevated subway train that ran through New York City, and was torn up to trade to Japan. 3 Now, to put the ideas together, the "nipponized bit of the old sixth avenue," is the metal Japan acquired from the U.S. to make into bullets for Japanese soldiers during World War II. So, the last stanza answers the questions that we've been wondering through the poem. The character, who is referred to as "him" by Cummings, is the soldier who is shot by the Japanese bullet. This mystery soldier is the one who ignores the forewarnings prompted by the most respected philosophers of our time, and although he knows that war leads to carnage, continues to fight until an opposing bullet kills him. Plato even said "Only the dead have seen the end of war," 3 and Cummings emphasizes this thought by showing that despite our many warnings by people who we accept as profound thinking, we still continue our ignorance until death. Although these protests against war seem typical in our modern society, Cummings" ideas were radical during the early 20th century. To put Cummings in the same list as Plato and Jesus might seem extreme, and almost blasphemous to some, but his work in "plato told" cleverly uses traditional thought to mark him as a revolutionary thinker against traditional culture before most writers of modern time. .
As war continued to rage through the world, Cummings" continued to write his concerns. In another anti-war protest poem, "my sweet old etectera," Cummings reveals the discrepancy between those who support war and the true feelings of soldiers. Despite popular belief of the United State's post-World War One nationalism, soldiers didn't live a picturesque, glorious life. The poem develops an image of a family supporting their brother, and son, before he goes off to fight in Europe. Everyone in the family contributes: his sister knits socks, shirts, and ear warmers.
