The Thing Is Literary Elements

The omniscient speaker instructs readers using the second-person perspective to love life regardless of how difficult the circumstances are.

This free-verse poem is composed of one stanza with sixteen lines.

Metaphors
-"your throat filled with the silt of it" (Line 5): The thick feeling in the throat that results from emotions is compared to earthly sediment.
-"When grief sits with you, its tropical heat / thickening the air" (Lines 6-7): The presence of grief is compared to the heavy humidity of tropical heat.
-"only more of it, an obesity of grief" (Line 10): The weight of grief is compared to the condition of being overweight.

Similes
-"and everything you’ve held dear / crumbles like burnt paper in your hands" (Lines 3-4): The important things in a person's life that provide structure and purpose are compared to ashes.
-"heavy as water" (Line 7): The air of grief is compared to the heaviness of water.
-"when grief weights you down like your own flesh" (Line 9): The weight of grief is compared to the heaviness of a person's body.
-"Then you hold life like a face" (Line 12): Facing one's own life and choosing to love it is compared to holding a person's face in one's hands.

Alliteration
-"to love life, to love it even" (Line 1): The "l" sound repeats.

Assonance
-"your throat filled with the silt of it." (Line 5): The "i" sound repeats.

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Lyric Poetry

The specific setting of this poem is unspecified, but the poem portrays the human body experiencing grief. The speaker evokes grief as a heavy presence by comparing it to intense humidity and to an obese body.

Optimistic, Resilient, Loving

The protagonist is the openness to loving life despite experiencing the weight of grief. The antagonist is the inability to love life.

The major conflict in the poem is the unbearable weight of grief.

The climax occurs when the speaker points out that people suffering from grief will reach a point where they wonder whether their bodies can withstand the weight of the experience.

The first line "to love life, to love it even" foreshadows the return to the concept of loving life that occurs at the end of the poem.

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Grief is personified as a heavy presence that "sits with you."
Life is personified as a lover whose face you hold "between your palms."

Those who have not personally experienced grief may consider the following sentiment of doubt to be an example of hyperbole: "How can a body withstand this?" The speaker states that the heaviness of grief reaches a tipping point that causes a person to wonder whether they can withstand it. However, for those who have experienced the weight of grief, this is not a hyperbole.

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