Revard

“Driving in Oklahoma” presents some excellent contingencies that members of American culture may easily deem as universal in the realm of technology. The technology used in the poem is mostly radio and automobile, but one could also examine the engineering of a highway. However, the car is the most important element of technology.

For almost half a century, the car has been a symbol of American culture. The individualistic society fertilized by manifest destiny touts freedom above all else. A car represents freedom in that the driver gets in, and goes. But not everyone can connect with this concept, it is very specific to technology “haves”; on the other side of the technology divide the “have-nots” would not relate to the “highway feeling” that Revard illuminates so well for car-owning Americans.

Although the car represents a whopping contingency, it can also be argued toward universals within the poem. Oklahoma in the title is the only locating feature. The readers do not know where Revard is going, or where he came from. The reader, being able to make assertions, is given an empty slate. Therefore, the universality is the question, that any person could wonder, where is he going? Revard might have asked himself the same question as a meadowlark flew across his path.