Who Understands Me but Me

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1990

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Isolation and Conflict Resolution

“Who Understands Me but Me” is a poem about isolation and the way the speaker learns to relate to his innermost self when everyone in the outer world seems to be against him. The title suggests that the main theme is this relationship between parts of the self and the quest toward greater self-understanding.

The speaker uses the pronouns “I” and “they” to differentiate between the self and everything else. The “they” of the poem may imply the prison guards, specifically, but “they” may also refer to anyone who has control over the speaker or to society in general. They continue to take from the speaker and tell him he is “beastly” (Line 8). They lock him away and force him into isolation.

The speaker acknowledges there are others in the world, yet the way “they” (Line 14) treat him prevents him from connecting with those others. He writes, “they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no friends” (Line 8), which implies that the speaker believes the negative things others tell him. This negative self-belief prevents him from making friends. He emphasizes this isolation again, saying, “they separate me from my brothers, so I live without brothers” (Line 14). This is subtly different because it implies the speaker knows he has brothers—those who have either a literal, cultural, or spiritual connection to him. Despite these strong connections, “they” (Line 14) prevent him from relating to his brothers, and he remains isolated.

With nobody to relate to, however, the speaker finds himself getting to know himself better. In having all other external freedoms removed, he discovers an inner freedom—the freedom to better understand and love himself.

The Divided Self

The poem depicts an incarcerated man being stripped of all dignity, ability, and human contact. Yet each stanza ends with the declaration, “Who understands me when I say this is beautiful?” (Lines 15, 38). The line is meant to surprise the reader and to invite the reader to understand how this seeming degradation can have a positive outcome.

In the second stanza the speaker makes it clearer how his isolation has brought him benefits. Though in the first stanza the speaker depicts others as telling him how “beastly” he is (Line 8), once alone with himself, the speaker finds the opposite to be true. He lives with himself and practices being comfortable with all parts of himself. Under duress and isolated, the speaker reached within himself and found space to explore (Lines 19-27).

The speaker does not find that everything about himself is perfect. He acknowledges that he has fears and is “stubborn and childish” (Line 22). Yet he is “astounded” by his fears and “taken” by his failures (Line 21). When he says, “in the midst of this wreckage of life they incurred” (Line 23), he acknowledges the part he played in coming to the “wreckage” of his life. At the same time, he divides himself into different parts in Lines 28-37 and blames the parts for the wreckage, rather than ascribing the wreckage to himself as a whole.

While the other people in the speaker's life treat the speaker with unkindness, the speaker shows himself the compassion and understanding he is not getting from the outside world. In the final movement, where the other parts of himself open their mouths and let sunlight out, the speaker shows the reader how he gives himself what others have taken away. He vows loyalty to himself and can laugh at “me” (Line 36) with other parts of himself. He becomes multiple people, learning to encourage and treat himself the way a friend would, when nobody else does.

Inner Goodness

The speaker's self-discovery comes against the backdrop of the “they,” such as the guards, who continue to abuse the speaker. The environment around the speaker, and his negative treatment from others, creates a person who is warped, hateful, afraid, and creating a wreckage of his life. The speaker's isolation is meant to be a punishment for bad behavior. Paradoxically, however, isolation forces the speaker to come into contact with himself on a deeper level. Coming into contact with that inner self, despite the negative influences, forces the speaker to see his own fears, failures, etc., but it also helps him to find things about himself he never knew.

The “new” parts teach the speaker that there are more important things than water. In essence, once he has gotten past the fear and failure, he finds a part of himself to love that loves him back. This is the essence of his humanity, but he only finds it after working through all of the other negative self-images he finds along the way.

Paradoxically, this essential self is the opposite of the self that was reflected back to the speaker by the guards. The speaker found his new self not because others showed it to him, but because he was removed from others and left entirely on his own. It was his own inner self that taught him about parts of himself. The poem insinuates that without others doing harm, the self can act as teacher, friend, and beloved companion. Self-knowledge may be more beneficial than good relationships with the outside world. It also suggests that even when a person has negative and damaging relationships with the outside world, the inner self can offer a positive counterpoint to those negative external attitudes.