The Man with Night Sweats (Thom Gunn) Flashcards
CONTEXT: Aids (symptoms ) [1]
Sweating at night is one of the first symptoms of AIDS and this poem neatly sums up an individual’s personal reaction to their body’s dysfunction. ‘sweating’ in the poem more broadly as a sign of fear.
Instead of addressing the disease directly, the poem focuses on the speaker’s shifting relationship with his body - it explores an individual’s personal reaction to their body’s dysfunction, and the prospect of mortality.
Plot of poem [4]
- Intimate, 1st person view of someone suffering with aids
- Him blaming his body and how weak it is
- Exlplores victims slow understanding of the severity of his condition
- Slowly slipping away but no one to support him
Tone [2]
- fear, disgust, dignified, down to earth, and compassionate, sensitive.
- no mention of the disease but the suggestion is that this is the beginning of the end. These are no ordinary night sweats; they are profound because they signal the inevitable decline into weakness and death.
Theme [1]
solitude, fear of death, giving up, illness
Structure [3]
- separated into stanzas of either two lines, known as couplets, or four lines, known as quatrains. The couplets and quatrains follow a simple rhyme scheme of ABAB CC that remains consistent throughout the poem. The very structured rhyme scheme provides an interesting contrast with the illness the speaker is suffering from. His illness is completely out of his control, but his words are not.
- Rhyming in some places: rhyming in poems is “normal” may reflect on his desire to be normal.
- Elegy
Literary devices [3]
- Caesura: a reflection that his life could also stop suddenly.
- Enjambment: a reflection that his life could also stop suddenly.
- Allusion (an indirect reference to something): Although it does not say so, the poet alludes through context clues to the fact that his main character, the first-person narrator, has AIDs. Without this context, the poem loses a great deal of its meaning.
CONTEXT: In what decade did the AIDs epidemic affect the gay community? [1]
1980s
CONTEXT: What real life experience is this poem based on? [1]
Gunn lost many of his gay friends to AIDs. The disease and grief are explored in this poem
What happens to the poem’s rhyme scheme as the poem progresses. [1]
The rhyme scheme starts of symmetrical and structured (ABAB CC). It then breaks down towards the end of the poem: (LMNOPQ) This could mirror the physical effects of AIDs ravaging a person’s body. It could also mirror the turmoil of grief and loss.
What person perspective is the poem told from? Why? [1]
First person “I”. Perhaps this reveals how intensely personal the subject matter is to the poet.
How does the poet convey the loss of health and of joy? [2]
Through the use of contrasting imagery: e.g “cold” and “heat” e.g. the “heat” representing his previous healthy vitality whereas “cold” hints that he is now close to death.
Also the poet juxtaposes the past and present tense “prospered” - “I wake” - he remembers the life he once had.
What device is used in the following line: “My flesh was its own shield”? What is the effect [1]
Metaphor
It suggests that his body was strong and able to defend itself against illness. It seems he took this forgranted
What does the extended metaphor: “The given shield was cracked” suggest? [1]
Gunn outlines that if a person contracts HIV, their body is now defenceless - they are vulnerable
What feeling/ tone does the following line suggest? “Hugging my body to me” [1]
Tone of isolation and loneliness - has he been ostracised/ isolated by society which was afraid of the AIDs virus?
What word class is “to shield” in this line?
Why is that significant?
“As if to shield it from
The pains that will go through me,” [1]
A verb
Perhaps conveys the pointlessness of trying to fight off the disease
