The Man With Night Sweats Flashcards
Context of speaker
Speaker is a gay man experiencing night sweats as a common sympton of AIDS.
The poet is gay, and many of his friends died due to AIDS
Themes
Illness + Vulnerability :s peaker laments his current vulnerability + mourns the lost strength and daring of his youth, when his body seemed to be a self- healing “shield” against the “risk[s]” he took
Mortality: the speaker laments human mortality in general
1-4 (3)
‘I wake up cold, I who
prospered through deams of heat
Wake to their residue,
Sweat, and a clinging sheet’
Cold: Illlness drained his passion + joy
prospered: he thrived + enjoyed these dreams
dreams of heat: hot dreams involving sexual desire
metaphor: his illness is a ‘residue’ of sex and desire (bc HIV is sexually transmitted)
5-6 (3)
My flesh was its own shield:
Where it was gashed, it healed.
-Metaphor for invulnerability of youth: speaker remebers when his body was as strong as a shield
-was in past tense: speaker no longer has this ability bc HIV ruins human immune system
-combination of monosyllabic words, W alliteration, strong ‘sh’ + ‘d’ consonance:
Makes these lines sound heavy + dense, like ‘shield’ they describe
7-10 (3)
I grew as I explored
The body I could trust
Even while I adored
The risk that made robust
1st line: exploration was vistal for his coming of age (by learning more about his body he ‘grew’)
2nd line: his youthful invulnerability led him to take risks (drugs + sex) bc he could trust his body to heal itself
3rd + 4th line: he loved the thrill of risk taking (felt confident he’d be unharmed)
11-12 (3)
(Risk/robust)
A world of wonder in
Each challenge to the skin
The same ‘risk’ + ‘challenge’ that led to his coming of age led to his illness
Challenge to the skin = sex w/ men + drugs
Strong ‘w’ + ‘r’ alliteration = makes language sound more ‘robust’ mirroring the intense pleasures
13-16 (6)
I cannot be but sorry
The given shield was cracked
My mind reduced to hurry ,
My flesh reduced and wrecked
-TONAL SHIFT: speaker aknowledges illness that’s ‘wrecking’ his body
-Introduction slant rhymes: imperfect rhyme mirror speaker’s vulnerable body
-metaphor: given shield = body he was born with
-‘Shield was cracked’ = his body no longer offers real protection, its now vulnerable
-‘Flesh reduced’ = lost weight+ muscle (sympton of aids)
= use of flesh (fragile )instead of body (has bones and is stronger) emphasizes his vulnerability
-Anaphora ‘my [] reduced’ shows how disease has affected him mentally + physically
17-22 (4)
I have to change the bed
But catch myself instead
Stopping upright where I am
Hugging my body to me
As if to shield it from
The pains that will go through me
change the bed(bc he’s soaked his sheets w/ sweat)
He feels the need to ‘shield’ his body since his own body can’t
Verb choice hugging: -conveys the love he feels for his body +
-there’s a sense that he’s mourning its inevitable loss
‘As if’ : his ‘shield[ing]’ is only imaginative
Ending (3)
As if hands were enough
To hold an avalanche off.
-speaker recognises his own ‘hands’ won’t be ‘enough’ to protect him
-his arms can’t hold of the metaphorical ‘avalanche’ of pain/death AIDS patients faced
Slant rhyme to end poem: conveys an unsatifying ending
Structure
4 quatrians alternating w/ couplets + regular rhyme = strict form
–> makes poem feel contained, reflects speaker’s attempt to contain himself emotionally + physically
