A Man
George was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small portable T.V. His
dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he needed a shave, and ash
from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning.
Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and hit his skin, then he cursed, brushing
it away. There was a knock on the trailer door. He got slowly to his feet and answered the
door. It was Constance. She had a fifth of unopened whiskey in a bag.
"George, I left that son of a bitch, I couldn't stand that son of a bitch
anymore."
"Sit down."
George opened the fifth, got two glasses, filled each a third with whiskey, two thirds
with water. He sat down on the bed with Constance. She took a cigarette out of her purse
and lit it. She was drunk and her hands trembled.
"I took his damn money too. I took his damn money and split while he was at work.
You don't know how I've suffered with that son of a bitch." "
Lemme have a smoke," said George. She handed it to him and as she leaned near,
George put his arm around her, pulled her over and kissed her.
"You son of a bitch," she said, "I missed you."
"I miss those good legs of yours , Connie. I've really missed those good
legs."
"You still like 'em?"
"I get hot just looking."
"I could never make it with a college guy," said Connie. "They're too
soft, they're milktoast. And he kept his house clean. George , it was like having a maid.
He did it all. The place was spotless. You could eat beef stew right off the crapper. He
was antisceptic, that's what he was."
"Drink up, you'll feel better."
"And he couldn't make love."
"You mean he couldn't get it up?"
"Oh he got it up, he got it up all the time. But he didn't know how to make a
woman happy, you know. He didn't know what to do. All that money, all that education, he
was useless."
"I wish I had a college education."
"You don't need one. You have everything you need, George."
"I'm just a flunkey. All the shit jobs."
"I said you have everything you need, George. You know how to make a woman
happy."
"Yeh?"
"Yes. And you know what else? His mother came around! His mother! Two or three
times a week. And she'd sit there looking at me, pretending to like me but all the time
she was treating me like I was a whore. Like I was a big bad whore stealing her son away
from her! Her precious Wallace! Christ! What a mess!" "He claimed he loved me.
And I'd say, 'Look at my pussy, Walter!' And he wouldn't look at my pussy. He said, 'I
don't want to look at that thing.' That thing! That's what he called it! You're not afraid
of my pussy, are you, George?"
"It's never bit me yet." "But you've bit it, you've nibbled it, haven't
you George?"
"I suppose I have."
"And you've licked it , sucked it?"
"I suppose so."
"You know damn well, George, what you've done."
"How much money did you get?"
"Six hundred dollars."
"I don't like people who rob other people, Connie."
"That's why you're a fucking dishwasher. You're honest. But he's such an ass,
George. And he can afford the money, and I've earned it... him and his mother and his
love, his mother-love, his clean l;ittle wash bowls and toilets and disposal bags and
breath chasers and after shave lotions and his little hard-ons and his precious
love-making. All for himself, you understand, all for himself! You know what a woman
wants, George."
"Thanks for the whiskey, Connie. Lemme have another cigarette."
George filled them up again. "I missed your legs, Connie. I've really missed those
legs. I like the way you wear those high heels. They drive me crazy. These modern women
don't know what they're missing. The high heel shapes the calf, the thigh, the ass; it
puts rythm into the walk. It really turns me on!"
"You talk like a poet, George. Sometimes you talk like that. You are one hell of a
dishwasher."
"You know what I'd really like to do?"
"What?"
"I'd like to whip you with my belt on the legs, the ass, the thighs. I'd like to
make you quiver and cry and then when you're quivering and crying I'd slam it into you
pure love."
"I don't want that, George. You've never talked like that to me before. You've
always done right with me."
"Pull your dress up higher."
"What?"
"Pull your dress up higher, I want to see more of your legs."
"You like my legs, don't you, George?"
"Let the light shine on them!"
Constance hiked her dress.
"God christ shit," said George.
"You like my legs?"
"I love your legs!" Then george reached across the bed and slapped Constance
hard across the face. Her cigarette flipped out of her mouth.
"what'd you do that for?"
"You fucked Walter! You fucked Walter!"
"So what the hell?"
"So pull your dress up higher!"
"No!"
"Do what I say!" George slapped again, harder. Constance hiked her skirt.
"Just up to the panties!" shouted George. "I don't quite want to see the
panties!"
"Christ, george, what's gone wrong with you?"
"You fucked Walter!"
"George, I swear, you've gone crazy. I want to leave. Let me out of here,
George!"
"Don't move or I'll kill you!"
"You'd kill me?"
"I swear it!" George got up and poured himself a shot of straight whiskey,
drank it, and sat down next to Constance. He took the cigarette and held it against her
wrist. She screamed. HE held it there, firmly, then pulled it away.
"I'm a man , baby, understand that?"
"I know you're a man , George."
"Here, look at my muscles!" george sat up and flexed both of his arms.
"Beautiful, eh ,baby? Look at that muscle! Feel it! Feel it!"
Constance felt one of the arms, then the other.
"Yes, you have a beautiful body, George."
"I'm a man. I'm a dishwasher but I'm a man, a real man."
"I know it, George." "I'm not the milkshit you left."
"I know it."
"And I can sing, too. You ought to hear my voice."
Constance sat there. George began to sing. He sang "Old man River." Then he
sang "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen." He sang "The St. Louis
Blues." He sasng "God Bless America," stopping several times and laughing.
Then he sat down next to Constance. He said, "Connie, you have beautiful legs."
He asked for another cigarette. He smoked it, drank two more drinks, then put his head
down on Connie's legs, against the stockings, in her lap, and he said, "Connie, I
guess I'm no good, I guess I'm crazy, I'm sorry I hit you, I'm sorry I burned you with
that cigarette."
Constance sat there. She ran her fingers through George's hair, stroking him, soothing
him. Soon he was asleep. She waited a while longer. Then she lifted his head and placed it
on the pillow, lifted his legs and straightened them out on the bed. She stood up, walked
to the fifth, poured a jolt of good whiskey in to her glass, added a touch of water and
drank it sown. She walked to the trailer door, pulled it open, stepped out, closed it. She
walked through the backyard, opened the fence gate, walked up the alley under the one
o'clock moon. The sky was clear of clouds. The same skyful of clouds was up there. She got
out on the boulevard and walked east and reached the entrance of The Blue Mirror. She
walked in, and there was Walter sitting alone and drunk at the end of the bar. She walked
up and sat down next to him. "Missed me, baby?" she asked. Walter looked up. He
recognized her. He didn't answer. He looked at the bartender and the bartender walked
toward them They all knew eachother.
Literary Analysis
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Summary
Set in a trailer, over drinks, cigarettes, and petty recriminations, the poem follows George, a working-class man who is bored, insecure, and eager to prove himself. When Constance arrives after leaving another man, the scene begins almost like a reunion or rescue, but it quickly turns into a tense performance of desire, resentment, and humiliation. George and Constance talk about the absent Walter, about money, sex, and class, and each exchange reveals how badly both of them need approval, comfort, and some version of power.
The poem moves from casual intimacy to open cruelty and then, unexpectedly, back to tenderness. George brags, threatens, slaps, and burns Constance, trying to assert his masculinity, yet he also collapses into self-pity and apology. Constance is not simply a victim or a liberator; she understands George's need for admiration and uses that knowledge while also reclaiming her own agency at the end. The final walk back to Walter leaves the reader with a bitterly comic sense that these relationships are cyclical, compromised, and shaped by need as much as by love. The central tension is between the hunger to be valued and the violence that hunger can produce.
Theme
- Masculinity as performance - George keeps proving he is "a man" through posture, threats, muscles, and sexual boasting, as if masculinity must be staged and repeated to be believed.
- Power and humiliation - The poem shows power shifting back and forth: George dominates Constance physically, but she also exposes his insecurity and ultimately leaves him behind.
- Class and self-worth - George's work as a dishwasher becomes part of his shame, yet the poem suggests that manual labor does not make him lesser in the emotional world he inhabits.
- Sexual appetite and resentment - Desire in the poem is mixed with possessiveness, mockery, and hurt, turning attraction into a struggle for control.
- Loneliness and need - Beneath the insults and bravado, both characters seem desperate for company, reassurance, and a place to rest.
- False respectability - Walter's cleanliness, education, and polished manners are treated as hollow substitutes for warmth, erotic knowledge, and emotional honesty.
Literary Devices
- Dialogue - The poem relies heavily on direct speech, which makes the scene feel raw and immediate while also revealing character through argument, teasing, and confession.
- Repetition - Repeated phrases about legs, manhood, and missed desire create a compulsive rhythm that mirrors obsession and emotional fixation.
- Juxtaposition - Ordinary domestic details sit beside cruelty and sexual aggression, intensifying the poem's uneasy realism.
- Irony - George insists on his manhood while behaving desperately and contradictorily, which exposes the gap between his self-image and his actions.
- Characterization - Small details such as the dishes, the whiskey, the cigarettes, and the trailer build a vivid social world and quickly establish the characters' habits and vulnerabilities.
- Symbolic action - The slap, the cigarette burn, and the final movement from trailer to bar all carry emotional meaning beyond the literal events.
Symbolism
- The trailer - A cramped, temporary home that reflects instability, poverty, and the improvised nature of the relationship.
- Whiskey - A sign of escape, numbness, and fleeting intimacy; it fuels the conversation but cannot solve what the characters are feeling.
- Cigarettes - Their constant use suggests tension, nervous habit, and self-destruction, especially when the ash burns skin.
- Constance's legs - George's fixation on her legs turns them into a symbol of desire, beauty, and the kind of physical power he can admire but not truly control.
- George's muscles - They represent his attempt to make masculinity visible and undeniable, even though they cannot cover his insecurity.
- The Blue Mirror - The bar at the end suggests a public world where these private dramas continue, unchanged and already familiar to everyone there.
Tone
Bukowski's tone is blunt, mocking, and darkly comic, but it is not simply cruel. He lets George sound ridiculous and dangerous at the same time, and that contradiction keeps the poem from settling into easy judgment. The mood for the reader is tense, shabby, and uneasy, with flashes of crude humor and longing that never quite cancel the threat underneath. By the end, the scene feels less like a victory than a weary survival ritual.
Historical Context
Bukowski is closely associated with mid- to late twentieth-century American working-class writing, especially poetry and prose that focuses on bars, cheap rooms, sex, labor, and damaged relationships. His work often rejects polished literary manners in favor of colloquial speech, abrasive honesty, and a deliberately unglamorous view of urban life.
That broader context helps explain the poem's interest in class, masculinity, and emotional exhaustion. The characters inhabit a world shaped by wage labor, booze, and sexual bargaining, and the poem reflects a strain in American literature that treats ordinary, difficult lives as worthy of attention without sentimentalizing them.