The Man With Night Sweats was written in 1992. The poem was written as a lyrical poem, which gives the reader an impression that the speaker is in emotional pain. The use of rhyme and meter also contribute to the intensity that provide the reader with images of the world of someone that suffers with a mysterious disease. Each line of the poem ends with an end rime. There are four quatrains and each one is followed by a couplet. The poem seems to be written in trochaic pentameter. The Man With Night Sweats, by Thom Gunn was a poem that used imagery to draw the reader into the mind and body of a man with a mysterious disease. In this essay I will analyze what the poem says and why it is so important to the reader, while keeping in mind that any understanding or critique of this poem can be argued.
             In stanza one there lies a sad but strong image of a man who sleeps in comfort through his dreams but wakes to find that reality is harsh and not a dream. I wake up cold I who Prospered through dreams of heat Wake to their residue(1-3). Gunn uses the repetition of I throughout the
             poem possibly implying that it is hard for him to believe that this disease is his reality. The reader can visualize a sleeping man who wakes almost suddenly from a warm and delightful dream into a cold harsh reality only knowing bits and pieces of what was dreamed. It is almost like coming out of an oven and dipped into a bowl of ice water, a shock. What is ironic is the fact that the man wakes up cold but yet he is sweating. Whatever this mysterious disease is it conflicts with the body temperature of its victim. The reader may think that the man could have AIDS, diabetes, or even leukemia. Gunn possibly uses this specific word order and broadness of the description of the man waking up cold yet sweaty to give the reader a broad view of what the man's ailment may be.
             The Man with Night Sweats contains great
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