A Man I Am

1. A Man I Am Stevie Smith

2. Author Biography • Born in Hull (England) in September 1902 • Was Christened with the name Florence Margaret, but was always called Peggy by the family. She acquired the name Stevie from a friend who said reminded her of a jockey, Steve Donaghue. • When Stevie was 3 years old, her father left home as a result of his business failing, which lead to his marriage failing as well. She saw very little of her father and resented the fact that he had abandoned his family. She found him boring and always disliked him. • Stevie’s family were regular churchgoers and Stevie enjoyed the hymns and psalms. Later her relationship with religion became ambiguous. Although agnostic and often antagonistic to Christianity, she said there was always a danger that she would lapse into belief. • When Stevie was five she developed tuberculous peritonitis and was sent to a sanatorium near Broadstairs, where she remained off and on for several years. She was very distressed about being sent away from her mother.She thought that if she kept on crying and refusing to eat she would die, and her misery would end. When she found she did not die immediately, she began to think that she need not die today, death could be put off to another day (she was 7). However she always kept in her mind the thought that death could be summoned at any time if she decided that her suffering was more than she could bear. She continued to find this thought helpful when she became depressed. Death fascinated her and is the subject of many of her poems. • Stevie’s mother died of heart disease when she was sixteen. She was left with her Aunt Madge who looked after her, but disregarded her early poetry as ‘unnecessary’. • In 1949, her father, who had remarried and then been widowed for the second time, died. Stevie declined to attend the funeral • In 1953 she had some sort of crisis at work. What happened is not known exactly but she cut her wrists. This does not seem to have been a serious attempt at suicide, she was taken to hospital and then to a friends house and was reported to be angry rather than depressed, and later very remorseful because she had upset her aunt • Stevie died of brain tumor in March 1971. Unmarried.

3. I was consumed by so much hate I did not feel that I could wait, I could not wait for long at anyrate. I ran into the the forest wild, I seized a little new born child, I tore his throat, I licked my fang, Just like a wolf. A wolf I am. Repetition of I indicates that the narrator was only thinking about himself, being selfish. Only caring that he had so much Hate within him and not the people he was affecting. The use of the word ‘consumed’ in the first line is very powerful, as it emphasizes the fact that the narrator is basically a bundle of Hate. ‘so much hate’ even that he cannot wait to take revenge or release this rage inside of him. The use of the ‘ate’ rhyme is very effective here, as it has a very sharp/quick sound, this shows the hostility/ or impatience of the narrator and his urge to wreck havoc, because that’s what you do when your angry, you get blinded by the hate inside you and usually end up doing terrible things you later on regret.

4. I was consumed by so much hate I did not feel that I could wait, I could not wait for long at anyrate. I ran into the the forest wild, I seized a little new born child, I tore his throat, I licked my fang, Just like a wolf. A wolf I am. The repetition of the word ‘the’ could just be a typo in the anthology or it could represent that the narrator is very confused/blinded by hate. The use of word ‘forest’ shows that the narrator has gone insane, as ‘forest’ is a symbol for the edge of mankind. So this shows that the narrator has gone wild with rage, and is in a state of confusion, and stepping over the edge of what separates us from Man and whatever (animals, monsters etc)

5. I was consumed by so much hate I did not feel that I could wait, I could not wait for long at anyrate. I ran into the the forest wild, I seized a little new born child, I tore his throat, I licked my fang, Just like a wolf. A wolf I am. Very important line. It represents the narrators state of mind right now is animalistic, primal and feels no guilt or remorse. Heartless There is a contrast between the innocent ‘little new born child’ and the hate consumed narrator. And this kind of foreshadows something terrible is going to happen, as you place a defenseless child into a Man consumed by hate. Very strong and horrifying imagery is created as the narrator “tore his throat” the cute innocent babies throat, and as the narrator licks the blood of his ‘fangs’ with no remorse. ‘I licked my fang’ is the first time we are signified that the narrator is not a Man but more of an animal, an entity formed from pure hatred. This also shows the narrator feels no guilt for what he has done.

6. I ran wild for centuries Beneath the immemorial trees, Sometimes I thought my heart would freeze, And never know a moment’s ease, But presently the spring broke in Upon the pastures of my sin, My poor heart bled like anything. The drops fell down, I knew remorse, I tasted that primordial curse, And falling ill, I soon grew worse. Until at last I cried on Him, Before whom angel faces dim, To take the burden of my sin And break my head beneath his wing. The use of the words centuries and immemorial, shows that a very long time has passed, the rhyme again also emphasizes what the poet is trying to say, with the long vowel sounds ‘eeze’ representing a long time has passed. It says that the narrator ran wild, but always stayed beneath the ‘immemorial trees’, this could suggest that, he is rooted to the spot by guilt, just like how ghosts usually haunt the places where they die, he is kept at the place where he committed his horrific crime. This signifies the beginning of a change of tone in the poem as he begins to feel some kind of guilt.

7. I ran wild for centuries Beneath the immemorial trees, Sometimes I thought my heart would freeze, And never know a moment’s ease, But presently the spring broke in Upon the pastures of my sin, My poor heart bled like anything. The drops fell down, I knew remorse, I tasted that primordial curse, And falling ill, I soon grew worse. Until at last I cried on Him, Before whom angel faces dim, To take the burden of my sin And break my head beneath his wing. The narrator says that his ‘heart’ is ‘freeze’ing, despite how his previous actions were so heartless (this again signifies a the beginning of a change of tone). He thought that his heart would freeze and he would die, ‘and never know a moment’s ease,’. Smith oddly puts an apostrophe in moments to show that ‘ease’ belonged to ‘moment’ and that the narrator had never possessed ‘ease’ before. Here we see the long torturous agony that the narrator is going through as hatred eats away at him, slowly… bit by bit… and he is haunted by guilt every second of the centuries and never knowing a ‘moment’s ease’.

8. I ran wild for centuries Beneath the immemorial trees, Sometimes I thought my heart would freeze, And never know a moment’s ease, But presently the spring broke in Upon the pastures of my sin, My poor heart bled like anything. The drops fell down, I knew remorse, I tasted that primordial curse, And falling ill, I soon grew worse. Until at last I cried on Him, Before whom angel faces dim, To take the burden of my sin And break my head beneath his wing. The change in tone comes with the change in imagery from dark, cold, freezing to warm, bright and green. The words ‘spring’ and ‘pastures’ gives positive imagery, and the change from negative to positive imagery also signifies the narrators change in state of mind. We begin to sympathize with the narrator after this point. Change in tone.

9. The narrator explains that the ‘spring broke in’ to the freezing winter land within his heart. He now understands that, what he’s done is a ‘sin’, which shows he knows that it was wrong, unlike in the previous stanza where he did not know. He accepts that it is his sin as he says ‘my sin’. His ‘heart bled’ as he comes to a realization that what he has done is beyond despicable. This shows that as the narrator feels the guilt and starts to feel remorse, ‘the spring breaks in’ bringing warmth to his cold heart and ridding it of Hate. But now instead of Hate eating away at him, it is his own guilt. I ran wild for centuries Beneath the immemorial trees, Sometimes I thought my heart would freeze, And never know a moment’s ease, But presently the spring broke in Upon the pastures of my sin, My poor heart bled like anything. The drops fell down, I knew remorse, I tasted that primordial curse, And falling ill, I soon grew worse. Until at last I cried on Him, Before whom angel faces dim, To take the burden of my sin And break my head beneath his wing.

10. I ran wild for centuries Beneath the immemorial trees, Sometimes I thought my heart would freeze, And never know a moment’s ease, But presently the spring broke in Upon the pastures of my sin, My poor heart bled like anything. The drops fell down, I knew remorse, I tasted that primordial curse, And falling ill, I soon grew worse. Until at last I cried on Him, Before whom angel faces dim, To take the burden of my sin And break my head beneath his wing. Although the narrator has accepted his sin, he is still tortured by his sense of guilt, as he ‘tastes that primordial curse’. And that the sense of guilt was even worse than the Hate that had consumed him.

11. I ran wild for centuries Beneath the immemorial trees, Sometimes I thought my heart would freeze, And never know a moment’s ease, But presently the spring broke in Upon the pastures of my sin, My poor heart bled like anything. The drops fell down, I knew remorse, I tasted that primordial curse, And falling ill, I soon grew worse. Until at last I cried on Him, Before whom angel faces dim, To take the burden of my sin And break my head beneath his wing. ‘Until at last’ the narrator could not bear the ‘curse’ of his sin any longer and ‘cried on Him’, him with a capital referring to God. He sought forgiveness from God as he knew no other way to get forgiveness for his terrible sin. ‘Before whom angel faces dim’ means in front of (God) even the angels faces seem dim. The narrator cried and pleaded God to take this curse/burden off him as it is destroying him. The continuation of the rhyme ‘in’ here, emphasizes the fact that the narrator is constantly thinking about his sin and is tortured by the guilt all day everyday.

12. Upon the silt of death I swam And as I wept my joy began Just like a man. A man I am. The conclusion of the poem indicates that the narrator is about to die, but despite this he is happy now ‘my joy began’. Whereas during those centuries described in the poem, he has never felt the feeling of joy, and this is the first time he has ever felt joy. Here we see how happy the narrator is just from finally knowing what happiness is and we feel sympathetic towards him. He comes to the epiphany ‘Just like a man. A man I am’ contradicting what he said in the end of the first stanza, which represents that the narrator has changed from that savage, animalistic wolf to a Man that knows right from wrong.

13. Structure The structure of the poem is random and is split in to three irregular stanza’s. with the 2nd stanza being the longest, 1st stanza being 2nd longest and last stanza being the shortest. The 1st stanza represents Hate, whereas the 2nd stanza represents regret and the 3rd stanza represents the joy of resolving the Hate within your heart. The point in having the 2nd stanza being the longest and the 3rd stanza being the shortest is to show that, when you are Hating the regret you have will last the longest and is the most prominent, and hardly if any joy comes out of it, Smith is trying to portray that it is not worth it filling yourself up with hate, because the only one that is going to get hurt is yourself.

14. Themes • Hate • God • Regret • Forgiveness