The Hand That Signed the Papers – Poetry Analysis & Discussion

What does the poem ‘The Hand That Signed the Paper’ mean? What is it about? ‘The Hand That Signed the Paper’ by Dylan Thomas is a profound poem that poignantly delivers political commentary on leaders and the ruling class. It deserves to be dissected, devoured, and wrung out for its essence, that is, analysed to its fullest so that we may better understand and appreciate it.

(Drawing Hands Lithograph, 1948, M. C. Escher)

However, the poem should be read and enjoyed first and only then pondered over and understood. A poem is appreciated first through the beauty of its language, the words that taste good in the mouth, and then again when it is dissected, through which its flavour – its meaning – pops out in the mind. Thus, I recommend the reader first take in everything they can from the poem, if they have not already, and only then read the analysis and discussion.

 

 The Hand That Signed the Paper, Dylan Thomas

The hand that signed the paper felled a city; 

Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, 

Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; 

These five kings did a king to death. 

 

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder, 

The fingers’ joints are cramped with chalk; 

A goose’s quill has put an end to murder 

That put an end to talk. 

 

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever, 

And famine grew, and locusts came; 

Great is the hand that holds dominion over 

Man by a scribbled name. 

 

The five kings count the dead but do not soften 

The crusted wound nor stroke the brow; 

A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven; 

Hands have no tears to flow.

This poem talks about how ‘the hand’ has brought about great harm merely by putting into act a legislative document. By doing so, it has laid waste to a city. Clearly, the signed document does not work in favour of The People as it causes such strife and struggles that people feel even their breath has a tax imposed on it, that is, day-to-day existence and sustenance has gone from the baseline to a challenge. The Hand has also brought about other calamities. The line doubled the globe of dead indicates that the city has been ‘felled’ not only in a metaphorical sense but also in the literal sense of its population. Note how the scales and meanings of ‘hand’, ‘city’ and the people in the city change throughout the poem. The five fingers attached to the Hand breed paranoia in people while also putting ‘an end to talk’ (fear is mongered best when people are unable to discuss and quell it). The Hand can bring about disease, death, and famine with a single signature scratched by a goose’s quill, and it is compared to the hand of God as it has dominion over us as God does the heavens. The Hand and its ‘five kings’ are also shown to be cold and callous, keeping a tally of the dead but not mourning or caring about them.

Quite evidently, this poem is about heartless politicians and the harm they can bring.

The way this poem is written is very impersonal, a somewhat non-standard practice in poetry, which – counterintuitively – makes its theme pop out better. A more standard approach might be to list specific bad events caused by a person in power making insensitive decisions; doing so may have struck the cord of emotion more strongly in the reader by showing how people at the grassroots level are suffering from these legislatures: a single mother unable to feed her children, the number of homeless rapidly increasing and having no way to get out of the system, the minimum wage no longer being the minimum wage needed to survive, and other examples of systemic inequality introduced by corrupt politicians. 

Specificity is a powerful tool in poetry. Descriptions that are specific and/or reference concrete things everyone knows make poems more personal and tangible by reducing vagueness. Saying ‘the smell of Nescafé lumbered in the air’ creates a stronger and more grungy feeling than simply using ‘coffee’, but also a completely different feeling from ‘the smell of a biscotti frappuccino lumbered in the air’ which creates an image even if the reader does not know what a biscotti frappuccino is. Similarly, mentioning more detail about something than necessary makes it feel more true/plausible, because ‘why else would that detail be included? It has to be true.’ our brains automatically think. 

However, in ‘The Hand That Signed the Papers’, Dylan Thomas makes no such effort. He does not refer to politicians, legislatures, people in power, or anything of the sort even once – he opts for the more abstract imagery of hands and fingers, and leans on no examples or specific situations. Again: doing this makes the theme pop out better.

In the poem, the idea of a politician (a person in elected office) is reduced to a hand, similar to how the very concept of a politician is a reductivist representation of the Will of The People. A politician is not supposed to embody the ideals and beliefs of each and every individual; rather (in an ideal situation), a politician is someone who reduces the voices of every group no matter how big or small into a certain set of beliefs and problems. In a non-ideal and more real scenario, though, a politician only cares for a specific group, if that. As Douglas Adams wrote, ‘It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it [... and ...] anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.’

By depersonalising and objectifying a politician into a hand, Dylan Thomas makes it a universal problem that emerged from systems-of-government and not because of any type of person in charge. That hand could belong to anyone, that is, the person to whom it belongs it does not matter. This highlights the dangers created by the existence of a ruling class. Even if the current politician causing problems is to be removed, what will replace is another Hand, five terrifying fingers appended to it, ready to sign away papers that will fell another city.

It is important to note, however, that D.T. is not explicitly saying that power corrupts, nor that positions of power attract those who are dangerous and corruptible. Those are ideas the reader may ponder after reading the poem, but they are not directly in the poem. All he points out is the dangers inherent with centralised power and how oft times it is callous/self-interested people who are in those positions. It’s a systemic issue. Even if the person in charge wishes to do good, that much power in one person’s hands can bring about great calamity and suffering, no matter the intention.

The usage of hands is a synecdoche (where a part is used to represent a whole), yes, but the ‘whole’ for the Hand isn’t a politician, but the very idea of a politician. 

Thus, the problem Thomas highlights in ‘The Hand That Signed the Papers’ is not only the dangers of centralised power, but also reductivist representation and the tragedies incurred by it. Most politicians do not represent the wants and needs of the people. They only know and care for their own desires, no matter the cost.

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Now, let’s have a look at it stanza-by-stanza and understand it line-by-line,

   STANZA 1

The hand that signed the paper felled a city; 

Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, 

Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; 

These five kings did a king to death. 

The hand is what is said to have felled the city. Not the politician, not the legislation that was signed, not the consequences. Because of the very existence of politicians, a quiet dystopia continues to grow. Corruption of such degree that breath (that is, mere existence) is being taxed.

In the line These five kings did a king to death, the two ‘king’s have different meanings. The ‘five kings’ refers to the Five Fingers of the Hand while the second use of ‘king’ refers to the literal idea of a king. The line represents the rule of politicians taking the place of the rule of monarchs. This line may have more bearing in a British context where both monarchy and parliament coexist and thus the line shows that politicians have started taking precedence over kings and queens. Additionally, the usage of ‘kings’ for both politicians and monarchy creates a link between them, and further links that the democratic system is comparable with monarchical hierarchy. While democracy is definitely a step up from the ‘God-ordained’ absolute rule of monarchy, this comparison does help to highlight the problem of corruption that can come about because of democracy simply because of allocation of power is a very small group (‘five kings’).

   STANZA 2

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder, 

The fingers’ joints are cramped with chalk; 

A goose’s quill has put an end to murder 

That put an end to talk. 

Only a politician, disconnected from society, would have their fingers cramped in chalk – as opposed to the everyday citizen who works at the ground level, whose fingers are layered with dust and grime and coal. Being ‘cramped’ also creates the imagery of an unwillingness to open up and consider the actual situation of the people affected by it, beyond the paper. The fingers are cramped, and the connected shoulder is slumped: which is to say, the person to whom the hand belongs is too disinterested to know of the happenings.

The line put an end to talk may mean to end ongoing negotiations or to bring to a halt the discussion The People were having about said war, thus pulling a curtain over opinions as well. Whichever it is, D.T. frames it in such a way that only the quill held by the Hand can put an end to it, not the desires or discussions of the People. The only way something through government can happen, Dylan seems to say, is if politicians want it to happen. All we can do is pray that they’re on our side (‘A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven’).

The first stanza generates the idea that politicians can start wars, and the second stanza states that only they can end it.

   STANZA 3

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever, 

And famine grew, and locusts came; 

Great is the hand that holds dominion over 

Man by a scribbled name. 

‘Holds dominion’ empowers the idea of politicians having control over us similar to how God has control over the Heavens which is mentioned in the following stanza. Similarly, ‘treaty’ adds power to the idea of the ‘goose quill’ in the previous stanza.

The Hand has the potential to bring about disaster, that is, the irresponsible actions of politicians can cause great calamity, both in nature and within societies, from artificially inducing famines (as there are many examples in history) to starting meaningless wars (as there are, unfortunately, even more examples of).

Concerning the phrase ‘bred a fever’: A politician is supposed to be the voice of the people. They represent the masses. However, the masses are easy to control and sway. Cultivating fear, hatred, and suspicion is the easiest way throughout history for either someone in power or the media to control the opinions of The People. Radicalised and polarised people are much more willing to go along with outlandish proposals that they would otherwise have protested against if they were not so paranoid. 

   STANZA 4

The five kings count the dead but do not soften 

The crusted wound nor stroke the brow; 

A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven; 

Hands have no tears to flow.

It may now be repetitive to point out again, but once again the first two lines show how removed from society are its rulers, how indifferent. Human life has little value in their eyes; they see it as little more than a statistic (‘count the dead but do not soften’). The specific use of ‘kings’ here instead of Hand highlights its ‘might’, that is, their power over us. In the third line of the stanza, they are compared with God. Politicians are said to have dominion over human suffering and sympathy for human suffering, similar to how God has absolute rule over souls and their transmigration. Although unrelated, I find it noteworthy that the word ‘pity’ originates from the Lain ‘pietas’ from which the English word ‘pious’ also germinates. To be devoted and dutiful to someone is to be pious, and something to be regretted is considered pity; the hands were supposed to be devoted to the people, instead, it counts the deaths it has caused, not a morsel of piety or pity, nor do they ‘soften the crusted wound’ or ‘stroke the brow’ of those who have fallen under its hand.

Readers who are only familiar with Dylan Thomas through ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’ might not know that often he uses only rhythm in his poetry and not rhyme. He is a master of rhythm poetry. 

For this poem, though, he uses both. The rhyme scheme for ‘The Hand That Signed the Papers’ is abcb; the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme. However, the last stanza is awkward, specifically because of the final line where both rhyme (rhyming ‘brow’ with ‘flow’) and rhythm are circumvented. Despite that, it feels like an intentional decision. The meaning of the line is quite solid: hands perspire but they do not cry. The last line of ‘The Hand That Signed the Papers’ lacks a sense of finality because the rhyming is purposefully stilted and the phrasing is jarring. This was done intentionally because Dylan Thomas could propose no resolution to the problem of the dangers proposed by centralised power that he highlighted in the poem. Additionally, by breaking away from both these poetic instruments, the last line – which states that those in power do not care for you – is presented as less song-like and instead as a serious, frank statement.

 

P.S., a caveat that I would like to add is that this poem may be about Welsh politician and British prime minister David Lloyd George who led Great Britain during WW1 and signed the Treaty of Versailles (which formally ended The Great War) on Britain’s behalf. The ‘king’ that was put to death may be Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Emperor of Germany. However, this interpretation causes minor discrepancies. Wilhelm II went into exile, not because of the Treaty of Versailles but because of the November Revolution (German Revolution of 1918–1919) started by German soldiers around the end of The Great War. However, Prime Minister David Lloyd George did use the ‘Trial of the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II’ as a point in his campaign for the coupon election of 1918, so there is some murk in the water as to what a Welshman like Dylan Thomas could have thought. Chalk is attributed to teachers, but it was William George (Prime Minister Lloyd George’s father) who had been a teacher, and not the prime minister himself. Nor was David Lloyd George known for any type of sloping or exceptionally slanted shoulders. Thought this may be an overly literal interpretation. The last stanza seems too general to be about Prime Minister Lloyd George specifically, especially because it creates a very negative view of someone who was liked enough by the citizens to win the coupon election of 1918 by a landslide. Finally, Dylan Thomas wrote ‘The Hand That Signed The Papers’ in 1934 and it was first published in 1935, sixteen-years after the end of The Great War. It is also hard to decipher D.T.’s stance and sentiments on WW1 considering he was about four-years-old when The Great War ended and because he did not write extensively on the war in his other poems. Additionally, it is hard to know what sentiments people in 1935 held about Prime Minister David Lloyd George and World War 1 (if they viewed either of them favourably or not) and if they would have concluded that this poem was about Lloyd George and Wilhelm II and in the same light as which it is presented.

Personally, I am not all too keen on this more literal and historical interpretation – it pins the blame on just David Lloyd George while the other interpretation talks about government, systems of ruling, power and its relation to the citizen. The poem is intentionally written with extreme generalisations and I find it more fruitful to understand the larger and more rich meaning created by this impersonal nature. However, the reader is free to pick-and-choose, accept both or neither. I for one just like to enjoy the rhythm of the words and take from it what meaning I feel it has then move on.