bbc - gcse bitesize - stealing

3/3/2015 BBC - GCSE Bitesize - Stealing

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Picture courtesy of KarthikNarayanaswami

alone among lumps of snow, sick of the world.

Boredom. Mostly I'm so bored I could eat myself.One time, I stole a guitar and thought I mightlearn to play. I nicked a bust of Shakespeare once,flogged it, but the snowman was the strangest.You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?

The speaker in the poem statesthat the most unusual thing theyever stole was a snowman. Theydescribe how they did so and howenjoyable it was to know that"children would cry" as a result ofthe theft.

They also tell us about other thingsthey've stolen, often pointlessly:"Sometimes I steal things I don'tneed."

The speaker then tells us how they destroyed the snowman, bykicking it to bits, because they were "sick of the world" and"bored". Finally the writer admits this account of what they havedone sounds strange and that people "don't understand".

Structure and LanguageStructure

Although the poem is written in five equal stanzas [stanza: Agroup of lines of poetry that make up a unit like a paragraph ina piece of prose; a verse. ], there is no regularity in the lines.Sometimes the end of one line runs into the next line(enjambment). What is the effect of enjambment in theseexamples?

"I joyride cars / to nowhere""I took a run / and booted him again""My breath ripped out / in rags"



In each case, the line breaks 'act out' what is being described.

Language

Although the poem is about I, it is not the poet herself who istalking to us. Do you think the poem is told in the voice of aman or a woman, a boy or a girl? There is no way of telling itis deliberately ambiguous, a mystery voice.

The poet appears to be responding to a question someone hasasked. "'The most unusual thing I ever stole?'" S/he continuesto 'talk' to the reader throughout the poem and so thelanguage of the poem sounds like natural speech. S/he asksus to respond ('You don't understand a word I'm saying, doyou?') and so we feel directly involved.

Picture courtesy of Matthew A Batten

The speaker glamorises themselves and what they havedone, almost as if they are imagining themselves as the star ofa film. At times s/he even seems to be speaking lines from ascript: "I sigh like this Aah."

Some of the language is violent and destructive.

"The slice of ice within my own brain.""My breath ripped out in rags.""I'm so bored I could eat myself."



It shocks and surprises us. Is this perhaps to emphasise thelack of order in the speaker's life?

Imagery and Sound

Picture courtesy of Karthik Narayanaswami

The central image [image: A visual representation ofsomething; a mental picture; a persona that is presented to theworld. ] is that of the snowman alone in someone's empty yardin the middle of the night an image of dark and icy cold:

"... beneath the winter moon ...""... a mind as cold as the slice of ice / within my ownbrain ...""... frozen stiff, hugged to my chest, a fierce chill /piercing my gut ..."

How does this image add to the impact of the poem?

Well, there is an obvious parallel between the icecoldsnowman, alone in his yard, and the speaker,

"... standing / alone among lumps of snow ..."

The parallel is underlined by the speaker themselves whenthey describe the "ice within my own brain", and the "chillpiercing my gut" as if the snowman is inside them, as well ason the outside. The snowman, in other words, stands as a



symbol [symbol: An image or thing (usually somethingphysical eg a flag) that stands for or represents somethingelse (usually something abstract eg a nation). ] for the coldand loneliness of the speaker's own situation. Because thespeaker smashes the snowman up ("booted him. Again.Again.") it is also symbolic of his or her selfdestructivebehaviour.

Sound

The poem replicates natural speech, so that we can 'hear' thevoice of the speaker talking to us especially since s/he asksus direct questions. We can even hear the pauses as s/headds details to the story. "A snowman. / Midnight."

Attitude, Tone and IdeasMuch of the meaning of a poem is conveyed by the attitude itexpresses toward its subject matter. 'Attitude' can be thought ofas a combination of the poet's tone of voice, and the ideas heor she is trying to get across to the reader.

A good way to decide on the tone [tone: The mood or mannerof a text or part of a text. The author's 'tone of voice' or way inwhich they expect to be understood. The emotional loadcarried by a text. ] of a poem is to work out how you would readit aloud. Is this poem:

sneering and aggressive, almost spitting at 'ordinary'people who cannot understand?sad, lonely and asking for help?

Either tone would work. In fact the poem seems to verebetween the two, sometimes cynical and cruel ("Part of thethrill was knowing / that children would cry in the morning.")sometimes almost appealing for sympathy ("I was standing /alone among lumps of snow, sick of the world"). It's as if thespeaker's toughness masks something else, something farmore vulnerable.



Ideas

Picture courtesy of Alicia Savage

What is the poet is trying to say in this poem? All the followingideas are contained in the poem: it's down to you to decidewhich you think are the most important.

She is sympathising with the speaker who is obviouslylonely and bored and needs someone to pay attention tohim/her.She is trying to understand why anyone would want tocommit a senseless crime. If there is enough snow forsomeone to have made a snowman, surely there isenough snow for the speaker to have made one too, sowhy steal one?She is examining someone else's attitude to life "Betteroff dead than giving in."We are shown the speaker's loneliness (s/he needs thesnowman as a "mate"; s/he is "alone".We see how the writer regards him or herself as a failure "I stole a guitar once and thought I might learn to play" who cannot succeed in an 'ordinary' way.We see the speaker's pessimistic attitude: althoughthey'd like their life to be glamorous, they are reduced to



getting kicks from stealing a snowman and "'things I don'tneed".

ComparisonIn the exam, you will be required to write about several poems,some pre1914 and some post1914. To which poems wouldyou compare Stealing? There will be a number of ways inwhich the poems can be compared, and you may well be ableto think of ones which we have not!

Comparisons with other poems

Poet andpoem

What to look for in your comparison

Armitage: KidandHomecoming

All three poems are written in the firstperson [first person: The 'I' or 'we' usedby a narrator who is a participant in anarrative, in contrast to the third person 'he', 'she' or 'they' of a narrator who is notdirectly involved. ], but I've made out a willseems to be Armitage's own voice, whilein the other two he adopts a persona[persona: The speaker of a poem; afictional character in a drama; a masksomeone presents to the world ('persona'is the Latin word for an actor's mask). ].

Duffy: BeforeYou WereMine

Duffy's poem is personal. Like Armitage'spoem, it contains her own thoughts.

Yeats: Songof the OldMother

Yeats' poem also uses the first person, buthere Yeats adopts the persona of an oldwoman; he is not writing about himself..

Clare: Sonnet Both poems use the sonnet [sonnet: A14line poem, usually written in iambic

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetarmitage/kidrev1.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetduffy/beforeyouwererev1.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetarmitage/homecomingrev1.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryyeats/index.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetryclare/index.shtml

bbc - gcse bitesize - stealing

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