The subject of the poem is a homosexual man who experiences inner turmoil as he develops romantic feelings for his male friend. However, fear of judgment and ridicule from others prevents him from openly expressing his emotions. As a result, this internal conflict consumes the persona.
Despite his willingness to take the risk of a lifetime and show his friend the depth of his feelings, he is still terrified of the potential consequences. He is well aware that his friend is not interested in exploring other sexual possibilities and is already in love with someone else, a girl at that. Ultimately, his fear triumphed over his love, leaving the persona unable to overcome his dilemma.
Understanding his friend’s conservative views on sexual relationships, specifically that the only acceptable union is between a man and a woman, the narrator already knew that pursuing a romantic relationship with him would be impossible and their shared dream would never come true. From this, we infer that the persona is a homosexual man who feels compelled to conceal his true identity from society. Initially adopting an argumentative tone, the narrator attempts to demonstrate to his friend that there are alternative possibilities for relationships, not limited solely to heterosexual unions. This sentiment is reinforced by the declaration: “He asserts that a man requires a woman, but I hold a contrary belief.”
The text reflects a conversation where the persona and the other person argue until the other person grows tired and falls asleep on the persona’s lap on a chilly night. The poem carries a tone of sadness due to a dream that will never become reality. The persona also expresses wistfulness about what could have been, as indicated by the line: “I am here slaughtering one wicked wish that when he wakes up I shall be his dream”. This line highlights the persona’s desire for their love to be reciprocated. However, the persona is hesitant to reveal their true feelings knowing that the person they love is already in a relationship with someone else.
The speaker chooses to be friends and suppress their emotions. Throughout the poem, certain words are interpreted beyond their literal meaning, seeking a deeper understanding. The utilization of the word “sleep” signifies a closed mindset unwilling to consider other potential sexual connections. Just like when someone is asleep, they are unaware of their surroundings, indicating their refusal to entertain opposing ideas. To avoid prolonging the disagreement, they conclude the argument by going to sleep.
The act of avoiding a discussion can be viewed as a sign of weakness, indicating a resistance to embracing change. The alternative approach is to ignore the issue and hope it resolves itself. The term “slaughtering” used by the speaker expresses a strong desire to terminate their friendship with the male friend. This choice of language adds an element of brutality compared to using a milder word like “ending”. The phrase “sleeps gently on my lap” implies that the guy has complete trust in the speaker, highlighting a deep and comfortable bond between them.
Assuming the guy is unaware of the persona’s homosexuality, or perhaps he prefers to ignore it and carry on as if nothing happened, he is content with their relationship and reluctant to address the matter further. This leads him to choose sleep over discussing the issue. From our standpoint, we believe he has made an astute choice of words that compel us to delve deeper, conveying vivid imagery of the true emotions and situations at hand.
The scene takes place at night, most likely on the porch of the persona’s house. This is evident from the reference to a “chilly night” and the suggestion of a cold wind blowing. As a result, it is unlikely that the scene occurred inside the house as they would not feel the chill. The overall mood of the poem depicts a doomed love. The persona holds deep affection for his male friend, but due to their conflicting beliefs, he is unable to truly express it. While the persona believes that a man does not need a woman, his friend holds the opposite view. Despite engaging in arguments with his friend, the persona realizes that it is futile, ultimately leading to the conclusion that their love is destined to fail.
Due to conflicting beliefs and the persona’s fear of rejection from society, the love between the persona and another individual can never be. The persona deeply cherishes their friendship and thus attempts to suppress their emotions to avoid further pain. To comprehend the tone of the poem “He who sleeps on my lap,” it is important to first understand the concept of cadence, which refers to the rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in language.
The motion in this place is transformed by the beat. It can manifest as a poem, story, or music. It is the modulation of someone’s voice, rising and falling as they speak. There is a rhythmic sequence of sounds or voices. For instance, a gentle and velvety voice conveys feelings of loneliness or sadness in the poem. Furthermore, it infuses emotions and sentiments into the poem, bestowing it with qualities such as excitement, sadness, sorrow, grief, or joy. In the poem “He who sleeps on my lap,” the rhythmic sequence embodies sadness and sorrow. The speech maintains a slow and deliberate pace.
The persona’s feeling of loneliness is depicted through the gentle falling voice. The poem evokes a sense of sadness and fear of being alone through phrases such as “My friend who sleeps on my lap loves someone else,” reflecting the persona’s downcast and sorrowful state. Additionally, the line “that I am here slaughtering one wicked wish that when he wakes up I shall be his dream” conveys a fear of confessing feelings to the person. The slow motion of the persona’s voice further enhances the emotive and melancholic quality. Each word in the poem resonates with our hearts.
We feel for him as he endures heartbreak and loneliness, knowing that he carries a problem he cannot share with anyone due to the fear of being judged. We also understand the weight he carries. Poetry incorporates sound devices such as consonance and assonance. Consonance refers to harmonious consonant sounds that contribute to the overall tone. It involves repeating consonant sounds within a series of words. This is often mistakenly mixed up with alliteration, which is a type of consonance. In poetry, consonance serves similar roles as alliteration but also has its own unique functions.
In poetry, consonance offers a diverse auditory range and entices the audience with a continual flow of consonant sounds. This technique creates a captivating rhythm that is not as overt as alliteration. By employing various forms of consonance, a poem avoids sounding childish, unlike the effect of alliteration. Overall, consonance and assonance lend a lively quality to the poem, with the repeated consonant sounds falling on stressed syllables and creating an even greater emphasis on these words.
When combined with consonant sounds in a phrase, one’s voice naturally fluctuates, resulting in a “bouncing” effect. This effect stimulates the ears and brain, keeping the audience engaged and energized. Additionally, it aids in their concentration, preventing boredom. In contrast, assonance, frequently utilized in poetry, imbues the imagery with deeper significance. It involves the repetition of vowel sounds within words or syllables. For instance, the words “wait” and “stay” exemplify assonance since they share the same vowel sound within.
Assonance, the use of repeated vowel sounds within words and syllables, is said to appeal to the reader’s ear and establish the writer’s artistic authority. It is often found in poetry, where its presence helps the verse flow smoothly. Although not considered an element of poetic form or structure, assonance is regarded as an extra poetic flourish. Its use in poetry allows for more creative freedom and the creation of an illusion of structure, deviating from traditional poetic conventions.
The poem “He who sleeps in my lap” utilizes consonance primarily with s sounds. Many words in the poem end in s and when the tone or voice of the poem is heard, s letters are prevalent. Examples include sleeps, loves, someone, else, says, is, needs, disagree, grows, sighs, innocent, slaughtering, wishes, wakes, and shall. These s sounds contribute to the melancholic quality of sadness and sorrow within the poem while captivating the audience’s attention and maintaining their engagement. Additionally, assonance appears in the poem through o, a, and e sounds.
The O sound resembles someone, knowing, loves, on, on, of, argue, grows, woman, on, on, knowing, innocent, and slaughtering. The A sound resembles lap, Loves, someone, a man, and, a, man, a, and, disagree, and, lap, sigh, but, lap, not, that, am, one, up, that, shall, And,I,I,tired until and night. Even though most of them were not spelled as “a”, they still have this quality of sound holding the a tone. The E sound resembles friend, sleep, else, He,says he,is needs we he,sleeps this chilly he else still,sleeps,gently here,wicked wish when he wakes bed,dream,and his.
The poem’s words have varying spellings, yet they possess similar sounds resembling “a,” “o,” and “e.” These sounds establish a peaceful and fluid ambiance. The existence of vowel sounds aids in sustaining the poem’s seamless and uninterrupted rhythm. In poetry, imagery holds significance as it can elicit visual representations and arouse our senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.
Imagery in poetry is crucial as it includes various senses such as visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory elements. It plays a significant role in allowing readers to imagine and experience the depicted objects through vivid descriptions. By utilizing imagery, poets emphasize on showing rather than telling, invoking emotions within their readers. For instance, a poem that portrays a gloomy sky and suffocating atmosphere can create a feeling of impending doom. On the other hand, another poem describing a braided rug on a shiny floor with honey-colored tones accompanied by the sound of crackling fire can evoke sensations of comfort and homeliness.
Every poem relies on imagery, which adds color and interest to the text, making it more vibrant and stimulating for the reader’s imagination. Visual, auditory, and tactile images are commonly used in poems. For instance, lines such as “loves someone else,” “on this chilly night,” and “I shall be his dream” contain visual imagery. The phrase “loves someone else” creates curiosity about the woman’s identity and appearance. Similarly, “on this chilly night” evokes a vivid mental image of a cold evening.
In conclusion, the phrase “I shall be his dream” embodies visual imagery, as dreams typically involve seeing images and visualizing the imagination. Additionally, auditory imagery can be found in the line “he says he is a man, and a man needs a woman. And I disagree, we argue until he grows tired of talking, and I sigh,” as it involves the use of sounds. When we argue, we speak, and speaking entails producing sound. Similarly, when envisioning the poem, sound plays a role in the imagery.
The sense of touch, also known as tactile sensation, can be detected through sentences that involve interaction and physical contact. Examples include “He is tapping your seatmate” and phrases like “who sleeps on my lap,” “and sleeps on my lap,” and “but still sleeps gently on my lap.” These interactions between individuals involve the feeling of touch. Sleeping on someone’s lap is considered to be a form of tactile sensation. (references: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-assonance.htm http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-consonance.)
Every poem contains various figures of speech that enhance its interest and appeal. These figures of speech serve to bring vividness and beauty to the poetic style, often employing words in a nonliteral sense for special effects. To achieve elegance, poets use a range of figures of speech, including metaphor, hyperbole, synecdoche, simile, apostrophe, chiasmus, antithesis, anaphora, alliteration, ellipsis, irony, and more.
Utilizing various figures of speech, the poem “He who sleeps on my lap” gains depth and importance. These include alliteration, anaphora, caesura, ambiguity, and enjambment. For instance, in the line “My friend who sleeps on my lap loves someone else,” the use of repetition with “my” demonstrates anaphora.
The poem incorporates various literary devices, including anaphora. An example of anaphora can be observed in the repetition of “he” and “a man” within the line “He says he is a man and a man needs a woman and I disagree.” Furthermore, the poem exhibits ambiguity in certain lines, such as “he who sleeps on my lap,” where interpretation may vary according to the reader. Additionally, caesura consistently appears throughout the poem.
The use of a rhythmic break or pause in the flow of sound is commonly introduced in approximately the middle section of a line of verse, although it can be varied for different effects. Typically placed between syllables that are rhythmically connected, this pause serves to aid the recital and clarify the meaning. It is determined by the sense of the content or natural speech patterns rather than metrics, and may or may not coincide with conventional punctuation marks. In the line “And I sigh,” this pause brings a halt to the flow of sound before resuming.
In addition, the poem also includes the figure of speech known as enjambment. Enjambment occurs when a sentence or phrase flows from one poetic line to the next without using terminal punctuation, which is opposite to end-stopped. Enjambment is used in the lines “that I am here slaughtering one wicked wish that when he wakes up I shall be his dream” and “we argue until he grows tired of talking and sleeps on my lap on this chilly night”. These phrases continue without pausing or using terminal punctuation.
It lacks punctuation and flows continuously, but the title “He who sleeps on my lap” can be interpreted literally. It suggests that when they have alone time, they cuddle together in that position. However, the way the author presents the poem indicates a deeper meaning to the title. The phrase “Sleeps on my lap” implies the closeness they share, representing the comfort they feel when they are together.
The text implies that the presence of a man sleeping in someone’s lap demonstrates a close bond and intimacy between them. The persona prefers to discuss their loved one without explicitly revealing their identity, instead using the pronoun “he”. This secretive approach is reflected in the title, which does not disclose the specific individual sleeping on the persona’s lap. While the pronoun suggests that it is a man, the poem does not provide details regarding their relationship or level of closeness. It is often assumed that a woman typically occupies this role.
The text reveals that the subject is a man, as indicated by the pronoun “he”, which is unusual. The title implies that someone can be near you without truly understanding you. Although it initially seems like a love story, further reading clarifies that this is not an ordinary one. The text highlights how individuals frequently hide their authentic identities to conform to societal gender expectations.
