17 pages • 34-minute read
You Can Have It
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.
Themes
Giving Up Versus Fighting
“You Can Have It” is a love letter to the speaker’s “brother” (Lines 1, 11, 41) as well as an elegy to a missed youth. At first, the speaker’s observations are somewhat objective as they remember how he registered both his own and his twin’s exhaustion, saying, “You can have it” (Line 4). Yet, in the memory, the speaker is unaware of the significance of his brother’s feelings. It is only “thirty years” (Line 9) later that the speaker remembers “that moment” (Line 10) and realizes this was pivotal. “You can have it” (Line 4) was a statement in which the sibling gave up his dreams for a life of work. This incident shaped his “heart” (Line 14) to be a thing that “always labors” (Line 14). From the minutes in that bedroom, through 30 years, the twin has driven himself to exhaustion, asking, “Am I gonna make it?” (Line 16). The speaker’s sympathy for his twin turns to outrage as he remembers how his brother had no youth because it was consumed by the necessity of work. If the speaker could, he would “give [the brother] back 1948” (Line 37) as well as “all the years from then / to the coming one” (Lines 38-39). If they could, they would replace the “brother who dies when he sleeps / and sleeps when he rises to face this life” (Lines 10-11) with the “young brother, hard and furious, with wide shoulders / and a curse / for God” (Line 41-43). The speaker imagines the “You can have it” (Line 44) as a battle cry rather than a thought that undid his twin. The speaker thus shows how much he wishes his sibling’s life had been an easier, and better, one.
The Dehumanizing Effect of Industrialization
In 1701, French explorer Antoine “de la Mothe Cadillac” (Line 26) discovered the land that would become Detroit. Two centuries later, the city would be irrevocably shaped by the “purposes / of Henry Ford” (Line 26-27), particularly his mass production of the automobile. Detroit became known as The Motor City and grew to be one of the largest cities in North America. The use of the assembly line spread from the auto plants to other companies, causing a vast increase in production of consumer goods. Such productivity enhanced the wealth of industry moguls and the comfort of average Americans—but it also set up the abuse of power toward workers on the factory lines. “You Can Have It” points out how many employees worked long hours and engaged in difficult physical labor with little room for rest and relaxation to make ends meet. The “young brother” (Line 41) is continually putting “silvery blocks” (Line 18) of “ice” (Line 17) down “the chute” (Line 18). This monotonous cyclicality is echoed in the speaker’s job at the bottling company, where he “stack[s] cases” (Line 19) into “boxcar[s]” (Line 20). This all-consuming routine at the factories eradicates human connection and the ability to enjoy life. Metaphorically, “1948” (Line 25) disappears from “newspapers, / calendars, doctors’ appointments, / bonds, wedding certificates, driver licenses” (Lines 30-32). The specificity of life and activity “fall[s] off” (Line 30) the map and it feels like the siblings “were never twenty” (Line 24). The longing to go back in time and reclaim human connection makes sense for those whose “heart[s …] always labor” (Line 14).
The Tricks of Time
The fleeting nature of time is a longstanding literary concern, and “You Can Have It” takes part in that tradition, using vivid imagery to convey this transience. The poem’s first two stanzas concentrate on a very specific “moment” (Line 10) between the siblings that unfolds in the small hours one night in “1948” (Line 25). This sharp focus is immediately blurred by in the next stanza by the rapid passage of time: Suddenly, it is “thirty years” (Line 9) later. Now, the speaker realizes what “that moment” (Line 10) in the forties heralded—his twin’s transit into sleepwalking through his life. Their shared youth, the speaker finds, is beyond memory; it passed by unfocused because the siblings could see little beyond surviving. “1948” (Line 25) has “fallen off all the old newspapers / calendars” (Lines 30-31) as if “no one” (Line 27) that year “wakened or died, / no one walked the streets or stoked a furnace” (Lines 27-28). This is, of course, metaphorical, expressing what sometimes happens to memory when one is so concentrated on a particular activity that other things fade. The twin has become a “brother who dies when he sleeps / and sleeps when he rises” (Lines 11-12), going through his life with “a mouth that gasps / for breath and asks, Am I going to make it?” (Lines 15-16). This existence, described as a living death, continues for years, with the “snow turn[ing] to ice” (Line 33) and then melting, the “bright grass [rising]” (Line 35) and then dying out—until suddenly, it’s 1978. The speaker’s memory is centered on the “moment” (Line 10) when time began its relentless speeding forward, taking them out of a youth forever. The speaker longs to spin back the clock and give back to his brother “all the years from [1948] / to the coming one” (Line 38-39). This would change the sibling’s life and, by extension, the speaker’s.
Unlock every key theme and why it matters
Get in-depth breakdowns of the book’s main ideas and how they connect and evolve.
- Explore how themes develop throughout the text
- Connect themes to characters, events, and symbols
- Support essays and discussions with thematic evidence