What did "Moloch" represent in Allen Ginsberg´s poem "Howl"?

Question

In Allen Ginsberg´s poem "Howl", what did "Moloch" represent? > What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? >Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks! >Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men! >Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! >Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! Moloch was a particularly nasty god that demanded child sacrifices. What does it mean here?

Answer 1

Only Ginsberg can say. Moloch was an ancient idol of the Middle East, consisting of a large mouth of fire into which parents threw their young daughters. This both was said to please Moloch and those wanting a strong male society, as opposed to what they saw as a "weak, female one.