21 pages • 42 minutes read
An Agony. As Now.
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Symbols & Motifs
The Body
The body is a source of conflict in the poem. A body’s flesh is typically associated with comfort, softness, and familiarity. Yet this body is “metal” (Line 7). It is cold, hard, and foreign. The speaker is not at home in this body. The speaker’s alienation from his body results in extreme pain, both physically and mentally. The metal body also reflects machinery, suggesting that the body has become a machine for capitalism and industrialization.
By treating his body as a separate entity, the speaker shows how his body is objectified. Others can use his body. For example, his body is used to love those he does not want to love. As a Black American poet, Baraka also comments upon the objectification of the Black body, including the pain of slavery and oppression, and the artistic expectations of white artists and their standard of beauty.
The speaker’s inability to reunite the body and the soul leads to the poem’s foreboding final image. As the body is separated from its soul, the body is unable to feel. Without the body, the soul is unable to speak. Instead, the soul is left screaming, trapped inside.
Sight
The ability to see and the limitations upon sight are a recurring image throughout the poem. In the past, the speaker was “blind and had / [his] enemies carry [him] as a dead man” (Lines 16-17). This blindness suggests that the speaker’s past self was blind to the dangers around him and trusted those he should not have. Now, the speaker’s sight inside the body is limited. The speaker tries to “look / out” (Lines 2-3) from the body’s eyes, but the body only has “[s]lits in the metal for sun” (Lines 7). The speaker’s ability to see is infringed upon by the body trapping it. His point of view is limited, defined by someone else. The “[c]old air blown through narrow blind eyes” (Line 37) suggests that the world outside of the body makes it so that the speaker is unable to accurately see the world around him while trapped inside.
Light
Light is an ambiguous presence throughout the poem. Initially, it is presented as a hopeful presence in the outside world. When the self is trapped inside, it looks “for sun” (Line 7) for a “glance of light” (Line 9) outside of the body. The lack of light inside suggests that the speaker is without the hope represented by this light and that he seeks its fulfillment. Human love “[g]lows as the day with its sun” (Line 38). The speaker’s desire to “live inside” (Line 39) suggests that this light is something to be desired. The heat can also burn the self. The body burns “white hot” (Line 38), subverting the connotation of the glow of human love—this is not a body that can be safely touched by another. Caught inside the body, the self “burns” (Line 43) and the untraditional punctuation makes it unclear whether the glow more aptly describes the flesh or the love. In addition, the sunlight is representative of white American culture. To match the beauty of this light, the soul must agree to uphold the status quo of white oppression.
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