The Portrayal of Disturbed Personas in Hitcher and Stealing

Throughout the entire duration of the poem, the snowman becomes a self-reflection of the narrator. “with a mind as cold as the slice of ice within my own brain” The narrator becomes obsessed with finding someone with the right status with him, someone who he can really call a friend. This creates strong friction with the whole idea of friendship being something which is full of joy, warmth, life and happiness, yet the idea of which the narrator finding life in something full of cold and darkness which makes the snowman seem more important. ‘slice of life within my own brain’ this phrase can strongly resemble the ideas of a lobotomy where it further build up the lack of sympathy, lack of emotion, lack of worth and lack of life in the narrators life.

All this creating emotions of weariness inside the audience some even calling the misunderstood narrator “weird” or a “freak”. The whole idea of the snowman being cold and mute could represent his failed attempts to connect to society. This may be disturbed to some as generally society don’t take a liking to people who’re mentally ill or emotionless due to it being considered as taboo or them scared for their weak lives. “standing alone among lumps of snow, sick of the world” Imagery of a malcontent and darksome atmosphere can be created, therefore causing some audiences to feel empathy and sorrow towards the narrator.

This phrase can also be represented through the snowman as the narrator personified the snowman as a self-reflection of the twisted, broken person he is. Use of “alone”, addressing him states that he’s conscious about his current state of mind and loss of bliss and happiness. This could also connect with the fact that whenever he touches objects that may give other people with delight, he destroys it. “hugged to my chest, a fierce chill piercing my gut” Due to the narrator hugging the snowman shows the lack of endearment in his life, therefore this act could been seen as him being desperate to find love even if it’s an inanimate object providing soulless, empty imaginary love, also this is the only time where the narrator has a physical interaction with anyone. This out make the audience uncomfortable due to their perception of love being towards of a being with life compared to the narrator’s love due to this contrast it creates an atmosphere that’s unwelcoming towards the audience. The harshness of the quote makes it seem like the reader is a bit of a masochist enjoying the pain that’s given to someone who he values as it’s something he never experienced before.

The contrast between the idea of hugs being warm, comfortable and gentle and yet it being as cold and fierce again shows how inspirational the snowman is towards the narrator’s life. “Stitch that, I remember thinking, you can walk from there. ” This phrase is produced with the entity of dark glorious humour which immediately from the start builds up from the disturbed and gory atmosphere therefore harassing the audience with the tone of satanic emotionless horror. ‘Stitch that” creates a comedic effect, as the whole idea of stitching is to heal and close up wounds whereas the hitcher suffered from wounds that are un-repairable.

Also the monotonous, casual tone and the simple sentence structure that this phrase is said in is creating an image that everything’s okay and nothing major really happened considering the sadism of the onslaught. “you can walk from there” this phrase is ironic is a matter that the hitcher was attacked gruesomely and bluntly in which he died from, creeping the audience out more. Overall, the tone of “Hitcher” is undervalued, containing casual day to day language hence making the atmosphere more daunting and menacing, due to the connotations of casual language being more light-toned. “He’d said he liked the breeze” This phrase plays on dark humour based on the hitcher’s lifestyle of being a hippie and how he enjoys the free, easygoing lifestyle and now his corpse is surrounding by the thing he loved. The idea of wind can be reference to a Bob Dylan song called “Blowing in the Wind” on which the message of the song is freedom, love, peace and how war and violence has affect humanity, this ironic contrast between the message of Dylan’s song and the assault against the hitcher adds into the dark humour. This would leave the audience feeling uneasy as something that’s intended to be about positivity is twisted into a way where nothing’s safe.

The structure of Hitcher is that there are five stanzas all containing five lines each, giving the impression of uniformity and formality. It can also be considered as a monologue due to it all being from the perspective of the narrator, which again gives the impression of normality. Enjambment is used quite a lot throughout this poem, such as in stanza 3 where it’s used to exalt the contorted violence. “on the” “with the” and “in the face” This usage of enjambment increases the momentum of the poem which increases the violence due to the short yet effective words used. The violence becomes even more exhilarating due to the direct sharpness of the mentioned phrases. Both poems burrow through the mental and psychological aspects of each narrator in their own poem. , giving the audience a false sense of normality before laying the truth upon them.

From the way that “Stealing” is presented out it seems that Carol Ann Duffy created a character that’s cold and isolated who attempts to make a connection with the outside world however there’s no form of acknowledgment, considering that in “Hitcher” quite the opposite could be said contact is made with the outside world, such as the boss or the hitcher, yet both resulted with a pessimistic outcome. In “Stealing” sense of reality is gone where as in “Hitcher” sense of emotions is destroyed.