Madeline Marbury

Phillips

English 101-022

15 February 2016

Not Just a Jukebox

In Sandra Beasley's poem, "You Were You," the narrator is a woman who has a dream about the nature of her relationship with the man she is in love with. The narrator's dream takes place in the man's favorite bar where he is with another woman and the narrator is the jukebox playing music in the background and watching them together. The narrator tries to get the man's attention with the music she plays but this fails and he ends up leaving with the other woman at the end of the night. This poem is about how the narrator is a woman who feels powerless and invisible when it comes to the man she is in love with, and in the end can only watch him fall for someone else, after which the narrator tries to go on without him and can not. This can be seen through the use of metaphors, symbolism, and personification. 

This poem can be proven to be about a relationship between two people with the first sentence. The first sentence is, "I dreamt we were in your favorite bar: You were you, I was the jukebox." The fact that they are in the man's favorite bar tells the reader that there is familiarity and a sense of intimacy between the narrator and the man because the narrator knows that this is his favorite bar. The sentence also tells the reader that these two characters are the two main characters and that the poem is about their relationship because they are the only two characters in the poem who exist outside of the dream. The other characters are only accessories to the story that are there to convey messages about the relationship between the man and the jukebox because they are not real people.  

The reader can be sure that the narrator loves this man because the poem begins with her admiring him from afar, "You were wearing your best smile." She also refuses the advances of another man who is trying to "seduce" her with quarters. She says that she stays loyal to the man that she loves. 

Another example is, "I wanted you to take your hand off of her." This quote explains that the narrator is jealous of the woman that the man is with which makes it even clearer that she loves the man. This quote also proves that the man does not love the narrator back because he does not seem to even be aware of her presence and is only concerned with the other woman. The narrator's jealousy of the other woman can be seen when she says, "If you had asked, I'd have told you her hair looked like plastic." Her judgment of this woman shows jealousy and the statement about her hair looking like plastic is a metaphor for the fact that this woman is not real or worthy of the man in any way.

The music that the narrator plays is symbolic of love. "I played Sam Cooke for you, but you didn't look over once." "I played Aretha, Marvin, the Reverend Al." All of these artists who are mentioned in the poem are famous for their hit love songs such as Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" and "the Reverend Al's" (Al Green's) "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart." These R&B/Soul love songs tend to have sad tones about them and their use helps to paint the picture of the unrequited love that the narrator has for the man. The references to this music make the romantic love the narrator has for the man very clear.

Beasley puts symbolism to use again when the narrator talks about the shirt that the man is wearing and what it does to his eyes, "the shirt that makes your eyes green." This tells the reader that the narrator is jealous through the symbolic meaning of the color green in poetry, where it is often associated with envy. The meaning of the jealousy proves again that the narrator loves the man and can only watch the events unfolding in the poem between him and the other woman, making the narrator feel powerless.

Beasley uses personification to emphasize the narrator's feelings of powerlessness and invisibility. In her dream, the narrator sees herself as a jukebox, which is an inanimate object that can not act and is not recognized as something with emotions. The narrator speaks about a number of things she wants to do, for example, "I wanted to dance. I wanted a scotch." However, being a jukebox in her dream she has no agency and can not do these things.  "But then, my mouth was plastic. I weighed 300 pounds." This quote also shows how powerless the narrator feels because of the fact that she is an inanimate object. She can not speak to the man or even move and she knows that she can never tell him things such as how she feels about him being with another woman, how she wishes that he would not touch the other woman, and maybe even that she loves him. The only thing the narrator can do is continue playing her music and hope that her songs will make the man realize she exists.

The personification of a jukebox also shows how invisible the narrator feels to the man. Beasley's choice to personify a jukebox as the narrator was because a jukebox is something that sits off to the side in the shadows at a bar and sings songs for everyone but receives little to no acknowledgment. That is why as the narrator sings her songs for the man, and he never acknowledges her, she feels invisible to him.

The quote, "But then, my mouth was plastic. I weighed 300 pounds," is also a metaphor. When the narrator says, "my mouth was plastic," her plastic mouth that is unable to speak is a metaphor for the fact that she does not have the courage to speak to him. When she says, "I weighed 300 pounds," she is further explaining her weakness and inability to act or make a move when it comes to the man, which only contributes to her powerless feeling.

The narrator says, "A man tried to seduce me with quarters but I could hear his truck outside, still running." This shows that the narrator has other opportunities and sees that other people expect her to take them. The running truck is a metaphor for this because it means that the truck is left running because the man fully expects to seduce her. After the man tries to seduce the narrator with his quarters, the narrator says that she stays loyal to the man she loves ("I was loyal to you.") This metaphor shows the narrator's love yet again.

"I wanted to dance. I wanted a scotch." Both of these sentences are another metaphor. Wanting to dance and wanting to have a drink are metaphors for how the narrator's love for the man paralyzes her. As much as she would like to let go she can not do as she pleases because she can not let go of her debilitating emotions for this man. 

After the narrator has tried everything she-- as a jukebox--is capable of doing to gain the man's attention and affections (which is merely playing love songs to him and refusing another man) the man she loves ends up leaving the bar with the other woman. After this happens, the narrator tries to make her own music, fails, and in the morning repairmen come to fix her. 

The act of trying to make her own music is a metaphor for trying to go on through life without the man she is in love with. The narrator says "Later, I tried to make my own music, humming one circuit against the other, running the needle up and down." This shows the narrator's attempt at trying to live on without the man after he has gone. With the circuits humming and the needle running up and down the imagery that is created by this language shows her last ditch effort and leads to the final sentence in the poem, "In the morning, they came to repair me." In the end, the narrator's feelings of powerlessness and invisibility were too much for her to overcome and eventually got the best of her. She is a broken jukebox that can not sing without the man she loves. 

The powerless and invisible emotions that come along with unrequited love are clearly conveyed by Sandra Beasley in the poem, "You Were You." Beasley uses symbolism, metaphors, and personification to tell the reader the story of the jukebox who holds an unrequited love for a man who can not love her back because she is a piece of machinery, who in the end breaks without his love. 
