‘Evening Twilight’ can be read in two different but simultaneous ways and so can be called ambiguous. The first stance that the speaker could be taken is that he is scared and uncomfortable walking through such a rough area and simply longs to be home, away from the debauchery of the streets after dark. On the other hand, the poem could be read as a sympathetic reflection on the plight of the poor. This ambiguity is very carefully crafted because while the first reading sympathizes with the upper classes as the speaker is one of them and simply wishes to be away from the filth and depravity of the working classes, the second reading criticizes this exact idea and challenges the implied reader to do something about the problem. Note that I am assuming that the implied readers are the people of the upper classes because only the wealthy would have been able to afford education in the mid-19th century and thus would have been the only people likely to be reading poetry.
Baudelaire states that at the fall of evening ‘restless man becomes a savage creature’. This can be read as the speaker talking about ‘the criminals’ who are restless for the darkness to fall in order to allow them to perform their crimes without being caught. These men are ‘savage creatures’ who are predatory, primal; they are driven by the primary instincts of eros and thantos, the desires for sex and aggression, and will prey on the innocent in order to receive gratification. However, a second way to read this is to apply it to the rich men who use the services offered on the streets after dark; driven by their own instinctual drive for sex they frequent the brothels. Another way to look at it, however, challenges the rich who simply see the poverty on the streets and keep on walking ‘restlessly’ – they are ‘savage’ in their disinterest.
The second sentence in the poem shows the similarities between the upper classes and the criminals they abhor; ‘evening [is] desired by him who can say/ without his arms proving him a liar: “Today/ we’ve worked”‘ and this clearly does not include the rich men whose work would not involve their ‘arms’ (bankers, for example, are not exactly required to do much heavy lifting), nor does it include the criminals who would not work during the day. Baudelaire confirms who is meant when he explains that ‘it refreshes, this evening hour/ those spirits that savage miseries devour/ the dedicated scholar with heavy head/ the bowed workman stumbling home to bed’. Therefore, the fact that neither the criminal underground nor the upper echelons of society can state that they have ‘worked’ shows that neither is actually superior to the other. In fact, the adjectives used to describe those who actually do work and contribute to society – ‘heavy’ and ‘bowed’ – implies that the upper classes exploit the working class to the point that they can do no more with their lives but work and then ‘stumble home to bed’; while the criminal class prey on the rich, the rich prey on the working class. If the rich were to act against the rise of poverty, the situation for all classes would improve dramatically; the criminal class would not have to resort to such measures to survive and would be able to find employment, resulting in the current working class not having to take so much strain and the rich would not fall victim to crime. By not acting for the benefit of others, they are responsible for the criminal class they detest so much.
When Baudelaire mentions that at the fall of evening ‘unhealthy demons rise again/ clumsily, in the air, like busy men’ it can again be read as a criticism of both the criminals and the rich. While the fall of darkness would indeed conceal any illegal dealings, it would similarly conceal any illicit activities that a wealthy man could indulge in. The phrase ‘unhealthy demons’ could apply to either group, dependent on the viewpoint taken; the overindulgence of the rich could be said to make them ‘unhealthy’ in terms of morality, while the criminal class could be thought of as ‘demons’ as the Church condemns thieves, prostitutes, murderers etc. to Hell.
The final quatrain can also be read as ambiguous – ‘Many a one/ will never return to their warm soup by the fire/ by the hearth, at evening, next to their heart’s desire/ And besides the majority have never known/ never having lived, the gentleness of home.’ The ones who ‘never return to their warm soup by the fire’ could be members of the gentry, cruelly murdered as they walked through such areas or it could be the poor criminals who die from a direct result of living in such squalor and poverty: hypothermia, starvation, disease etc. The final couplet can also been seen to apply to either social class – while the poor have never known the gentleness of home as they have never lived in one, it could be seen that the rich, leading such sheltered lives, have never truly lived and so do not appreciate the gentleness of home.
Both readings of this poem are equally applicable, but to chose one over the other would be to ignore half of the message we have discovered. Instead, we should understand that both work well at the same time as each other; the juxtaposition only heightens the meaning that there is a real and serious problem within society by showing how each side, each class, is ignorant of the other.
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