Little Beast

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Barbecue

The all-night barbecue is in the first sentence of the poem and then never comes up again. Although the barbecue appears only once, it is a potent symbol. The barbecue relates to the title of the poem, “Little Beast.” A beast is an animal, and, at barbecues, people tend to eat animals. The barbecue symbolizes the bestial foundation of the poem. The couple is as wild and killable as an animal. Like the animals, the couple is vulnerable to becoming dead flesh. The speaker also mentions “stains” (Line 6), which invoke perhaps barbeque sauce or condiments getting on clothing. These stains, however, appear in the last line of the stanza. Their placement suggests that both the couple, death, violence, the barbeque, and kisses are all defined as stains on the night.

The barbecue symbology also carries over into Stanza 2. The buck knife alludes to hunting, killing, and potentially eating animals. In Stanza 5, the speaker uses a simile to solidify his and his partner’s connection to beasts. “Everyone could see the way his muscles worked, / the way we look like animals,” states the speaker (Lines 26-27). The couple’s primal, reckless nature makes the entire poem feel like a barbecue—only it’s the men who are in danger of consumption.

Hunting, Prey, and Predators

The symbol of the barbecue relates to the motif of hunting. Throughout the poem, there’s a sense that someone is hunting the bodies of the men. The men are each other’s prey and predators. The man in Stanza 2 bolsters the idea that love has a prey-predator dynamic. The man carves his lover’s face into the motel wall with a hunting knife. The man plays the role of the hunter. Meanwhile, the lover is the game animal since the man captures his lover with the knife. The speaker, too, in wanting to both be the man and be with the man, embraces the role of both hunter and animal.

In Stanza 5, the prey-predator tension occurs between the speaker and his lover in sexual terms. The speaker longs to get his hands inside of his lover. The visceral imagery calls to mind a hunter eviscerating game. It’s as if the speaker wants to disembowel the lover. At the same time, the speaker notes the appeal of prey: “I wanted to be wanted,” confesses the speaker (32). The hunter chases after an animal the way a lover might pursue a loved one. The speaker wants his lover to go after him. The idea of being hunted, captured, and killed turns him on. The imagery of being inside his lover also suggests sexual penetration, with the blood symbolism adding and underscoring the violence in the poem. For the speaker, love involves the chase; sex is both purgatory and reward.

Names

The absence of specific names in the “Little Beast” makes them a powerful symbol. “There are many names in history / but none of them are ours,” asserts the speaker (Lines 17-18). Names can be limiting, but they also represent legitimacy. A person with a name might be tied to a historical moment more easily, but people without names suggest a freedom from the conventions of history.

Aside from history, the absence of names symbolizes the liberty of fluidity. There’s no full-proof way to identify the men in the poem. Presumably, when the speaker uses the plural possessive our, he means him and his lover. But there’s no tangible evidence to prove that this is the case. The speaker never attaches his lover to a name. The lover could be one man or multiple men.

The lack of names symbolizes the transgressive traits of the poem. With such unruly bodies, it’s sensible to withhold names from them. The bodies are too rough and mixed together to warrant separate names. Names counter the chaos and bring about order. Siken demands disorder. It’s not just humans that are denied names, it’s their concomitant objects. In Stanza 1, Siken doesn’t name the song on the radio or the brand of whiskey. In Stanza 7, Siken doesn’t name the handgun manufacturer, the car manufacturer, or the type of pills. Like humans, things and goods aren’t anchored to a proper noun. Since names have power, this decision is both freeing and damning.