This poem (based on a real event) is written in the first person.

The speaker in it is very obviously not

the poet. Carol Ann Duffy writes sympathetically in that she tries to understand this anti-social
character, but he is not at all likeable. What she shows is not so much an intelligent criminal but
someone for whom theft is just a response to boredom. Throughout the poem are hints at constructive
pursuits (making a snowman) and artistic objects (a guitar, a bust of Shakespeare). The thief steals
and destroys but cannot make anything.
The speaker is apparently relating his various thefts, perhaps to a police officer, perhaps to a social
worker or probation officer. He realizes at the end of the poem that the person he is speaking to (like
the poet and the reader of the poem, perhaps) cannot understand his outlook: "You don't understand
a word 'm saying doesn't refer to his words literally, so much as the ideas he expresses. The poem
is rather bleak, as if anti-social behaviour is almost inevitable. The speaker sees the consequences of
his actions but has no compassion for his victims.
The thief begins as if repeating a question someone has asked him, to identify the "most unusual
things he has stolen. The poet's admiration of the snowman is the closest he comes to affection, but
he cares more for this inanimate object than the living human children who have made it. And he
wants what has already been made - he cannot see for himself how to make his own snowman. The
thief is morally confused - he sees "not taking what you want as "giving in, as if you might as well be
dead as accept conventional morality. But he alienates us by saying that he enjoyed taking the
snowman because he knew that the theft would upset the children. "Life's tough is said as if to justify
this. The sequel comes when the thief tries to reassemble the snowman. Not surprisingly (snow is not
a permanent material) "he didn't look the same, so the thief attacks him. All he is left with is "lumps of
snow. This could almost be a metaphor for the self-defeating nature of his thefts.
The thief tells us boastfully he "sometimes steals things he doesn't need, yet it seems that
he always steals what he does not need and cannot use. He breaks in out of curiosity, "to have a
look but does not understand what he sees. He is pathetic, as he seems anxious to make a mark of
some kind, whether leaving "a mess or steaming up mirrors with his breath. He casually mentions
how he might "pinch a camera - it is worth little to him, but much to those whose memories it has
recorded.
The final stanza seems more honest. The bravado has gone and the thief's real motivation emerges -
boredom, which comes from his inability to make or do anything which gives pleasure. The theft of the
guitar is typically self-deceiving. He thinks he "might/learn to play but the reader knows this will not
happen - it takes time and patience. Stealing the "bust of Shakespeare also seems ironic to the
reader. The thief takes an image of perhaps the greatest creative talent the world has ever seen - but
without any sense of what it stands for, or of the riches of Shakespeare's drama. The final line, which
recalls the poem's conversational opening, is very apt: it as if the speaker has sensed not just that the
person he is speaking to is disturbed by his confession but also that the reader of the poem doesn't
"understand him.
This poem is colloquial but the speaking voice here is very distinct. Sometimes the speaker uses
striking images ("a mucky ghost) and some unlikely vocabulary ("he looked magnificent) but he also
uses clichs ("Life's tough). Single words are written as sentences ("Mirrors...Again...Boredom). The
metre of the poem is loose but some lines are true pentameters ("He didn't look the same. took a
run...). Mostly the lines are not end-stopped: the breaks for punctuation are in the middles of lines, to
create the effect of improvised natural speech. The speaker is trying to explain his actions, but
condemns himself out of his own mouth.
f we compare him to the speaker in Education for Leisure it is hard to say which is more dislikeable.
This one is more sane and predictable - he is a serial offender, but perhaps poses little risk to
people's life and limb. The character in Education for Leisure is far less in control of his or her actions
and may well be insane. t is interesting, too, to note that both of these characters refer to
Shakespeare.
O How does this poem create a sense of a real person speaking?
O What does the reader think of this character? Does his explanation of why he does what he
does make us like him more or less?
O s this person like the speaker in Education for Leisure, or different, in your view?
O The speaker recommends "taking/what you want. Does the whole poem lead you to agree
with this attitude?
O What might the last line of the poem mean? Can we read it in more than one way?
O The whole poem seems to be spoken by the thief. Does the poet find any way to help us as
readers to form our own independent opinion of this character?

























Starts with a question in line 1 - interacts with audience - challenges and gains interest
"Midnight" - image of darkness, night - links to perceptions of thieves and night-time.
"mute" - silence and unanswering, personification of object that is the snowman. No interaction with
this except on physical level (identifies narrator's social difficulties?)
"mate" - friend/sexual partner/soulmate? - narrator able to identify with the inanimate snowman. Their
minds are compares in simile form as both being cold like
ice - cold mind, reserved, indifferent, uncaring of people's reactions to his/her actions.
"Better off dead" - identifies own moral structure, that taking what you want to take is acceptable -
outside mores of society. This is character's way of life, stealing for the thrill, to feel alive.
Lines 7-9 - Difficulty of stealing and moving the snowman illustrates and enhances the feeling of
futility in the narrator's actions. Huge effort to steal something that has no monetary worth. The
snowman's only value lies within the feelings that it invokes in both the thief and the victims.
"fierce chiII" - character gets to feel through his/her actions, gains some sort of emotional response
(unattainable in 'normal' circumstances?)
"Part of the thriII" - the narrator steals with the full knowledge of the upset that his/her actions will
cause the victims. dentifies the cruelty and selfishness of his/her actions and tat this is the motivation
for the theft.
"Life's tough" - using this as an excuse for actions, absolving self of blame. Possible feeling that is
doing the children a favour - teaching the about the 'real world.'
"Ghost" - like a spirit, malevolent image, 38:-89,39, thing (as snowman is - hence attraction to it?).
Ghost is something outside of society, unacceptable.
"Ieave a mess" - character deliberately defiles people's homes - part of cruelty and thrill derived from
other's misery and suffering.
"gIoved hand" - shows intelligence, leaves no fingerprints. Also a separation from his victims, has no
direct physical contact with them or their things, has a barrier between himself and these others in
society.
"Mirrors" - image of insubstantiality - reflections formed by mirrors, links to ghost and snowman.
"I sigh Iike this - Aah" - character gains relief/freedom/sense of worth from actions (Has found own
place in society?).
Lines 16-18 - Act of stealing and reassembling ruins the snowman so act is in this sense worthless.
Destruction of snowman follows. This could have been done at the original site, with the same effect
on the children who built it, so why move it at all? t is this that identifies fully the narrator's need to
steal for kicks, as it is only this that could explain the reasons behind the actions. Was the original
intention to destroy the snowman?
"It seems daft now" - realises futility but makes no apology for actions - identifies the need for
something to permeate the intense boredom felt.
"AIone" - key word, no place in society, like the ghost he/she is compared to, insubstantial within
society?
"Sick of the worId" - no place within the world and no reasons to act as it dictates. s this dislike of
the world an excuse for the actions, a reason for the actions, the cause of the actions or an effect of
the actions?
"eat myseIf" - intense image of boredom. Would harm self to overcome boredom and is doing so.
Not in such an overt way but in a more subtle psychological way. Through actions is harming self as
is further distancing self from others and causing self to be more alone, and therefore more bored and
out of place. The image is an identification of the narrator's life, boredom, punctuated only by random
acts of vandalism, theft and cruelty. There is no meaning to his/her actions other than to satisfy and
entertain at other's expense.
Ends with another questions that is an even more overt challenge to the reader. Shows that the
narrator considers him/her self to be misunderstood and alone, that his/her experience is something
outside of normal understanding and comprehension. Possibly this is some sort of way of excusing
him/her self for his/her actions.





















CONTINT
The thing I remember most about the writing of STEALING is that Margaret Thatcher
was Prime Minister. During the 1980s, because of her governments policies, there was a
lot of social unrest- poll tax riots, the miners strike, race riots in cities like Liverpool and
Bristol. And there was a lot of homelessness and unemployment- very visible in London
particularly, with people sleeping rough in shop doorways. Then there was the Falklands
War. Thatcher said "There is no such thing as Society. She believed in the individual
pursuit of wealth and made many changes to facilitate this. So the rich got richer and
the poor got poorer, with continual cuts in education and health and social services. This
is the unseen background of STEALING.
The poem was originally inspired by the theft of my neighbours childrens snowman
from their front garden one night. Someone- for whatever weird reason- had taken the
snowman away and when the children woke up in the morning it was gone. I was so
intrigued by the oddness of this that I began to construct a voice for the "thief. I felt, in
an instinctive and perhaps humorous way, that only under Margaret Thatcher would
someone be driven to steal a snowman. So in some ways, the poem is a little political.
As I created the voice of the thief, I imagined that he is being interviewed- maybe by a
social worker or probation officer or journalist. Although I dont make it particularly clear
what sex the thief is, I imagined a male voice as I wrote the poem. But I left the sex
ambiguous because I wanted just a voice to come out of the poem, not a seeable
character. The thief is talking about the theft of the snowman ("the most unusual thing I
ever stole...) and in doing so he reveals something of his psychological and emotional
state.
The thief has stolen the snowman for company. ("I wanted him, a mate...). The thief is
psychologically disturbed ("the slice of ice within my own brain) perhaps because life
has been difficult ("lifes tough). He is pleased at the idea of children crying when they
find the snowman has gone because he wants to shatter their illusions in the same way
that his own have been. Perhaps the thief is not too far away from his own childhood.
Maybe he is a teenager ("I joyride cars...). Certainly he is hurt and angry. When he gets
the snowman back to his own backyard and re-assembles it, the snowman doesnt "look
the same and he expresses his anger and disappointment by kicking the snowman into
lumps of snow.
The thief is also bored and lonely- lonely enough even to imagine that a snowman could
be a "mate. He knows that somewhere there is a solution to boredom- perhaps in music
("I stole a guitar and thought I meant learn to play) or literature ("I nicked a bust of
Shakespeare) or home-making ("I break into houses just to have a look). But these
solutions seem out of his reach- probably because of lack of education, unemployment,
the drift into crime. And yet the thief instinctively knows that he must not give in to
hopelessness ("better off dead than giving in). In this sense, he feels that the theft of
the snowman is original, different, a way of asserting his own personality and needs. But
he also feels that no-one else will understand this ("You dont understand a word Im
saying, do you?)
ORM
STEALING begins and ends with a question- ("The most unusual thing I ever stole?;
"You dont understand a word Im saying, do you?) In this sense, the poem takes the
form of both an answer and a question.
I allowed the voice of the thief in STEALING to dictate the form of the poem. The poem
doesnt use a rhyme scheme or a particular metre but tries to follow the rhythm of a
speaking voice, sometimes with that voice speaking to itself, or speaking internally. I
found that the poem fell naturally (as most of my poems do) into regular-lined verses- in
this case, 5 5-lined verses. The verses are unrhymed and irregular in metre. These free
verses work for me like small canvasses to hold the words of the poem. They help to
control the rhythm, particularly when the poem is written in a voice. And the verse
shapes give the poem more energy by preventing it from sprawling or having too much
in it!
Sometimes, as in natural speech, there are rhymes in the poem- often internal rhymes,
rather than rhymes at the end of the lines- ("I started with the head.//Better off
dead...; "a fierce chill piercing my gut./ Part of the thrill...) Sometimes there are
assonances or chimes between the words (`mute, moon, mate, mind). This is all part of
making a music from the thiefs voice- something lovely coming out of something sad
perhaps. So when the thief says "Aah in verse three, it is a sound for his envy or
curiosity or longing. At this point in the poem he has no word for how he feels. At other
points, he speaks in one-word sentences ("Midnight; "Mirrors; "Again; "Boredom).
These one-word sentences usually work as keys to unlock more information, emotional
or psychological, from the thief.
LANGLAGI
The language in STEALING is a mixture of normal colloquial speech and a more lyrical
tone. Words like "mate, "ton, "gut, "tough, "joy-ride, "mucky,
"mess, "booted,rags, "daft, "sick, "nicked, "flogged- mostly blunt, one-syllabled
words- are rooted in the life and culture of the thief and reflect its harshness or
toughness. But there is a lyricism in the words the thief uses to describe the snowman-
"a tall white mute/ beneath the winter moon -or in his own breath seen against the cold
night- "my breath ripped out in rags- and in other parts of the poem, which is meant to
work against the slangier vocabularly. This is because I wanted the language of the
poem to suggest the difference between how the thief feels ("sick of the world) and
what the thief wants ("I though I meant lean to play). The more lyrical parts of the
poem are trying to reach upwards and away from the thwarted voice.







1he persona ln Lhe poem may have been upseL and en[oys Lhe Lhrlll of maklng oLhers feel Lhe way he
does
uuffy may be crlLlclslng socleLy for example when Lhe Lhlef says beLLer dead Lhan glvlng" uuffy
could be uslng Lhls as a meLaphor for how we (wesLern caplLallsm) acLs 1he land ls sLrlpped of lLs
resources wlLh llLLle glven back [usLlfylng Lhls wlLh llfe's Lough"
1he persona ln Lhe poem may feel lonely and feels LhaL someLhlng whlch oLhers have made/own
such as Lhe snowman" brlngs hlm closer Lo oLhers make hlm feel as Lhough he has frlends