They Don't Love You Like I Love You

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2019

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

Symbols & Motifs

Maps

Maps are a symbol for America, but not the America of the American-dream narrative. Maps in the poem symbolize an America which the land of subjugation, oppression, and the death of millions of Native Americans. Maps are “ghosts,” a metaphor which invokes the ghosts of the millions of people dead by settler colonialism. They are “layered,” as in that they conceal layers of history. The names in maps hide truths, such as when a Native American land is given a white name, or when a contemporary city is given a Native American name with no Native American input. Thus, maps symbolize death, lies, and arbitrary boundaries in the poem, both of which the poet associates with whiteness. Further, the term “maps” is used in the literal sense as well, which is as a diagram of an area showing its geographical and manmade (towns, cities, roads) features. However, the poem interrogates the concept that a map can be a tool for violent appropriation. Because the boundaries of manmade features can be redrawn, a map can assign one community’s land to another, displace whole communities, make people exile in lands they considered their own. Lastly, “maps” is the title of the song by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, snatches of which occur through the poem. In this sense, “maps” symbolize American culture, where pop songs and racial violence are both part of the country’s narrative.

White, red, and blue

The colors of the American flag – white, red, and blue – carry significant symbolic import in the poem. Whiteness is associated with cultural whitewashing (narrating history in a way that puts white people in a favorable light), white lies, and the whiteness of silence and death. The poet uses several metaphors to seal this association: from a clot of clouds to spilled milk to physical white papers of maps to ghosts. In each case, whiteness symbolizes an erasure or an obfuscation. Red in the poem symbolizes the violence against Native Americans and other minorities in the United States. Though the white of the American flag tries to make the redness palatable, the red of spilled blood shines through. Blue is also associated with whitewashing, where the projectors of America flicker their “sepia/ or blue” (Lines 26-27) image on Native Americans till it covers their skin. Again, these cool, bleached colors seek to obscure and subsume the identity and reality of Native Americans.

Beast, burden, and plow

The poet compares the weight of history which she carries to the “yoke of myself” (Line 34) and herself to “the beast of my country’s burdens” (Line 35). A yoke is a wooden crosspiece binding the neck of cattle to the plough or cart they have to pull. Thus, history is like a burden the poet can never forget, and it turns her into a beast of burden, an animal like an ox or a horse. Yet, it should be noted that the speaker does not consider this an unfavorable position. She is the beast of her country’s “burdens” or its history of violence and oppression and its sins against minorities, but it is better to be a beast of burden than it is to be “my country’s plow” (Line 37). The plow symbolizes violence, since it digs up land. It is a motif for the settlers appropriating Native American territories. The plow, a tool used in organized farming, also symbolizes settled, capitalistic agriculture versus the tools used by Native American farmers. Finally, the plow is also a phallic symbol, a symbol of masculinity and a literal “conqueror” of land. By preferring the yoke to the plow, the poet rejects the narrative that favors domination, destruction, and mechanism. It is better to carry the yoke of self-awareness than be an instrument of violence.