Gray’s ‘Flames and Dangling Wire’ leads the protagonist through the path of curiosity to visit a city rubbish dump

Gray’s ‘Flames and Dangling Wire’ leads the protagonist through the path of curiosity to visit a city rubbish dump, which functions as a microcosm of broader Australian society and discover the consequences of consumerism. The protagonist metaphorically communicated the influences of consumerism through “It was an always burning dump” described as a fire burning infinitely with inevitable echoes. Whilst exploring, the poet finds the characteristic nature of humanity to consume and destroy demonstrated through the gruesome allusion to death and the simile “a landscape of tin cans, of cars like skulls”. The abhorrence of the dump was highlighted through the utilization of hellish imagery “forking over rubbish over the dampened fires”, complementing the dystonic landscape. Flames and Dangling Wire was portrayed as an effect of curiosity that has allowed the poet to determine inexperienced findings