The Full Text of “Stealing”
The Full Text of “Stealing”
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“Stealing” Introduction
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“Stealing” was written by the Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy, who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 2009 to 2019. The poem's speaker is a bored, isolated person who feels "sick of the world" and routinely steals things just for the thrill of it. The speaker says that the strangest thing they ever stole was a snowman, which they later kicked apart, and ends the poem by frustratedly declaring that whoever is listening to this story doesn't understand the speaker at all. “Stealing” was first published in Duffy’s 1987 collection titled Selling Manhattan.
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“Stealing” Summary
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Talking to an unseen listener, the speaker declares that the weirdest thing they ever stole was a snowman in the middle of the night. The snowman was impressive-looking: big, white, and unspeaking in the winter moonlight. The speaker says that they wanted a friend whose mind was as icy and unfeeling as the speaker's own, and they took the snowman's head first.
There's nothing's worse than not taking the things that you want, the speaker continues. The snowman was really heavy, and, hugging his frozen body close, the speaker felt a powerful cold pierce right into their stomach. Part of the excitement of stealing the snowman was knowing that the kids who'd made him would cry in the morning, seeing that their snowman was gone, but, the speaker says, life’s hard.
Sometimes the speaker takes things that they don't need, stealing cars and driving them nowhere just for the fun of it and breaking into houses just to see what's inside. The speaker is messy, leaving disorder behind them and maybe stealing a camera if they feel like it. They watch their hands, gloved to avoid leaving fingerprints, turning a doorknob, and, once inside a stranger’s bedroom, will look into the mirror and sigh.
Stealing the snowman took a while. He didn't look right after the speaker put him back together in their yard, so the speaker ran at him and kicked him over and over until the speaker's breath grew painful and ragged. It seems silly now. Then the speaker was just standing by themselves among the chunks of snow, sick of everything.
The speaker is so deeply bored that they'd steal just about anything. They stole a guitar once, thinking maybe they'd learn how to play. They stole a statue of Shakespeare once and sold it. But the snowman was the weirdest thing. The speaker insists that the person they're telling all this to doesn’t understand anything that the speaker's saying at all.
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“Stealing” Themes
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Selfishness, Isolation, and Alienation
The speaker of “Stealing” is a compulsive thief—someone who routinely nabs anything from cameras to cars for the fun of it. The poem inspires a bit of sympathy for the speaker, implying that this person feels cut off from society and is seeking some form of attention and connection by acting out. At the same time, the speaker comes across as totally self-absorbed and lacking in the empathy required to overcome their isolation. The speaker's selfishness is actually self-destructive, further alienating the speaker from others and even from themselves.
While the speaker seems to steal out of pure “boredom,” the poem emphasizes the speaker’s isolation throughout—and, in doing so, might suggest that the speaker steals because they feel so disconnected from others. The speaker compares themselves to a “ghost” and even declares that they're “sick of the world,” for example, revealing that they feel profoundly cut off from and resentful of society. Even at the end of the poem, when it becomes clear that the speaker is trying to communicate to a listener, it’s also clear that the speaker is failing. Whoever's listening to the speaker's story doesn’t “understand a word [the speaker is] saying.”
It's possible that the speaker steals to express anger at this sense of disconnection, but their actions display a profound sense of self-absorption and lack of concern for others. The poem is full of “I” statements, for instance, which repeatedly center the speaker’s experience, and the speaker mentions taking pleasure in looking into mirrors (that is, in looking at themselves). The speaker also apparently takes the snowman because it's is just as “cold” as the speaker. In other words, the speaker laments their isolation yet can’t seem to focus on the feelings of anyone else! The speaker even says that “[p]art of the thrill” of stealing the snowman was knowing that “children would cry in the morning.”
It's unclear whether the speaker's selfishness caused their isolation or resulted from it, but, either way, it just makes things worse. The speaker might steal to attempt to forge some kind of relationship with other people or get some kind of attention—even if this attention is children crying in the morning because the speaker stole their snowman—yet the speaker’s selfishness only pushes other people further away. And in the end, the speaker destroys the snowman, “boot[ing]” or kicking it apart. Since the snowman is a mirror of the speaker, this suggests that the speaker is also destroying themselves through their self-absorption and cruelty to others.
Ultimately, then, while the speaker is clearly dislikable and self-interested, the poem suggests that this person is also profoundly alienated from society and filled with self-loathing. The speaker expresses this sense of alienation, emptiness, and anger the poem suggests, by stealing—yet this stealing only leaves them more alone.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-25
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Greed, Materialism, and Meaning in Modern Society
It's possible that “Stealing” is meant to evoke the specific world in which the poem was composed: Carol Ann Duffy wrote in the poem in the 1980s, when there were record levels of unemployment and crime in the UK and many people felt marginalized and ignored by their government. With this in mind, “Stealing” can be read as exploring the lack of purpose and opportunity—and the resulting rise in crime—many experienced in the UK when the poem was written. In this reading, the poem expresses the sense of meaninglessness, anger, and powerlessness that results when society promotes personal profit and materialism at the expense of less tangible things like human connection and art.
The poem's speaker seems to act out of self-interest yet has also clearly lost any sense of purpose. For example, the speaker proclaims, “[b]etter off dead than […] not taking / what you want.” In other words, the speaker acknowledges that they steal simply because they “want” to. At the same time, perhaps the speaker steals to assert some kind of power or agency in a society that has made the speaker feel alienated, isolated, and marginalized.
There's no real rhyme or reason to the things the speaker actually steals, either; the speaker doesn't “need” many of the things that they take, and these items don’t add anything meaningful to the speaker's life. The speaker steals cars and rides them “to nowhere,” for example, and "break[s] into houses just to have a look." The speaker seems to be searching for some sort of purpose or fulfillment, but the poem implies that the speaker won't find either through materialism, selfishness, and greed.
In a world like this, the poem suggests, even art is just another commodity to be bought, sold, or stolen. Note how one of the things the speaker steals is a “bust of Shakespeare,” an object that can be read as representing art and literature more broadly. Yet in the world of the poem, this figure of Shakespeare is simply a devalued object, an item to be "flogged" rather than admired. Similarly, the speaker says that they once “stole a guitar and thought [they] might / learn to play.” But the poem implies that the speaker never did learn.
Instead, the speaker’s stealing seems only to lead to a deeper sense of emptiness. The speaker ends the poem seemingly just as angry, bored, and isolated as they were when the poem began. None of the speaker’s small acts of defiance have brought them real power or fulfillment in a society that seems to be passing them by.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-25
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Stealing”
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Lines 1-3
The most unusual ...
... the winter moon.The poem opens with the speaker repeating a question that apparently has just been asked: what is the "most unusual thing" that the speaker ever stole? The speaker’s opening question is more specifically an instance of aporia: the speaker poses this question in order to answer it—to tell whoever the speaker is addressing about this "most unusual" theft.
The fact that a snowman is the “most unusual thing” the speaker stole implies that the speaker has stolen many other things as well. And a snowman is, indeed, a rather strange thing to steal. After all, a snowman has no material value; it's not something that the speaker could sell, and it seems like a tricky thing to move from one place to another. The snowman also evokes childhood, innocence, and joy. The fact that the speaker stole the snowman, then, alerts the reader to the speaker’s cynicism and lack of empathy.
The speaker took this snowman in the middle of the night, and describes it as looking “magnificent” while standing alone, “tall” and “white,” under the “winter moon.” The speaker personifies the snowman as “he” and also represents him as a “mute,” or a person who is unable to speak or communicate. This personification is important, since the poem will go on to suggest that the speaker identifies with the snowman and that the snowman—which is isolated, cold, and unable to communicate—is essentially a mirror of the speaker.
The poem is written in free verse, without a regular meter or rhyme scheme, and it feels casual and conversational as a result. At the same time, several sonic devices fill these lines with music.
For example, sibilant alliteration, as well as assonant long /oh/ sounds, link “stole” and “snowman,” while /m/ and /w/ sounds appear in “snowman,” “midnight,” “magnificent,” “mute,” “moon,” “white,” and “winter.” All these shared sounds might subtly evoke the speaker's fondness for the memory of the snowman theft.
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Lines 3-5
I wanted him, ...
... with the head. -
Lines 6-7
Better off dead ...
... what you want. -
Lines 7-10
He weighed a ...
... morning. Life's tough. -
Lines 11-13
Sometimes I steal ...
... pinch a camera. -
Lines 14-15
I watch my ...
... . -
Lines 16-18
It took some ...
... him. Again. Again. -
Lines 18-20
My breath ripped ...
... of the world. -
Lines 21-24
Boredom. Mostly I'm ...
... flogged it, -
Lines 24-25
but the snowman ...
... saying, do you?
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“Stealing” Symbols
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The Snowman
The snowman symbolizes the speaker themselves, and, more specifically, the speaker's emotional coldness, isolation, and cynicism.
Notice how the snowman's physical characteristics reflect the speaker's emotional characteristics: the snowman is cold and "mute," or unable to speak, while the speaker lacks emotional warmth and fails to meaningfully communicate or connect with others. The fact that the speaker wants the snowman for a "mate" also emphasizes the speaker's selfishness and self-absorption: the speaker wants a mirror of themselves for a companion and is happy that this companion can't talk.
The speaker taking the snowman apart piece by piece might represent the speaker trying to understand themselves, to break themselves down and see what's inside. Yet the snowman doesn't "look the same" when put back together, which suggests the speaker's sense of alienation even from their own self; the speaker can't understand themselves, and this makes the speaker angry. When the speaker then violently destroys the snowman, this symbolically represents the speaker attacking themselves—expressing their own self-loathing and aggression.
It's also worth noting that snowmen are traditionally linked with childhood innocence and joy. The fact that the speaker steals the snowman, then, reveals the speaker’s own cynicism; the speaker delights in knowing that the kids who made the snowman "would cry in the morning" when they realized he'd been taken away.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 1: “snowman”
- Lines 2-3: “a tall, white mute / beneath the winter moon”
- Lines 3-5: “a mate / with a mind as cold as the slice of ice / within my own brain”
- Lines 7-9: “his torso, / frozen stiff, hugged to my chest, a fierce chill / piercing my gut.”
- Lines 17-18: “I took a run / and booted him. Again. Again.”
- Line 20: “lumps of snow”
- Line 24: “snowman”
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Mirrors and Doubling
The poem is filled with images of doubling and reflection: the snowman is a mirror image of the speaker, the speaker steals a camera (a tool to capture moments to look at later), the speaker gets "so bored" that they could "eat" themselves, and, of course, the speaker notes that they take pleasure in looking into mirrors in other people’s houses. All of these images of reflection and doubling symbolize the speaker's self-absorption, self-obsession, and self-loathing—and the way that such emotions are also self-destructive and prohibit the meaningful connection with other people.
Note, for example, how hugging the snowman close makes the speaker feel "a fierce chill piercing [their] gut." This image suggests the simultaneous pain and thrill that the speaker gets from carting the snowman around. The snowman represents the speaker; the speaker thus feels both pain and excitement from metaphorically hugging themselves close, from embracing themselves, even though—or because—doing so hurts others (makes children "cry").
Also note how the mirrors the speaker looks into are more specifically located in stranger's bedrooms—in other words, in personal, intimate spaces that generally represent the character of their inhabitants. The fact that the speaker looks at themselves in such spaces, instead of trying to learn more about the rooms' owners, might suggest that the speaker's selfishness is what cuts them off from meaningful connection with other people. That is, the speaker is too busy looking in the mirror to look around.
Note that this self-obsession, however, isn't the same as self-awareness. The speaker comes across as a person who lacks the ability for meaningful introspection. As the speaker’s destruction of the snowman makes clear, the speaker doesn't want to, or perhaps genuinely can't, confront who they really are. Selfishness here doesn't lead to self-understanding or self-love. Instead, it leads to the speaker wanting to "eat" themselves—to destroy themselves.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 3-5: “I wanted him, a mate / with a mind as cold as the slice of ice / within my own brain.”
- Lines 7-9: “He weighed a ton; his torso, / frozen stiff, hugged to my chest, a fierce chill / piercing my gut.”
- Line 13: “maybe pinch a camera.”
- Lines 15-15: “A stranger's bedroom. Mirrors. I sigh like this — / Aah / .”
- Line 21: “Mostly I'm so bored I could eat myself.”
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The Guitar and Bust of Shakespeare
Toward the end of the poem, the speaker says that they once stole both a guitar and a bust (a statue of the head and shoulders) of Shakespeare. Both of these objects symbolize art and creativity—two intangible things that the poem implies have been devalued by modern, materialistic society. Both objects also speak to the capacity to communicate and emotionally connect with others and with oneself (think of how music or poetry can move people).
The speaker’s casual disregard for these objects is thus revealing. The speaker swiftly disposes of both; the poem implies that the speaker doesn’t learn to play the guitar after all and that they “flogged,” or sold, the bust. This implies that there's no place for art, and the meaning and connection it can foster, in the speaker's world.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 22-24: “I stole a guitar and thought I might / learn to play. I nicked a bust of Shakespeare once, / flogged it”
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“Stealing” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Repetition
The poem uses repetition to emphasize the speaker’s selfish and self-destructive actions. For example, the root word “steal” appears three times in the poem (four including the title). The poem also includes slang synonyms for “steal,” such as “pinch” and “nicked.” The repetition of the word “steal,” along with its synonyms, suggests how habitually and casually the speaker takes from other people.
The poem also repeats the word “I” throughout, in statements like “I wanted,” “I started,” and “I watch.” The repetition of “I” and the parallel structure of these statements emphasize just how self-absorbed the speaker is, centering the speaker's perspective and experience throughout.
The speaker uses more direct moments of repetition as well. Note the polyptoton in line 21, for example:
Boredom. Mostly I'm so bored I could eat myself.
This repetition emphasizes the speaker's "boredom," adding a sense of monotony to the line itself.
Finally, the speaker uses epizeuxis when describing kicking the snowman apart:
and booted him. Again. Again. My breath ripped out
This repetition evokes the speaker’s intense anger and aggression. Given that the snowman is a mirror of the speaker themselves, this moment more broadly implies that the speaker feels a great deal of self-loathing.
Where repetition appears in the poem:- Line 1: “I,” “stole”
- Line 3: “I”
- Line 5: “I”
- Line 11: “I,” “steal,” “I”
- Line 13: “I'm”
- Line 14: “I”
- Line 17: “I”
- Line 18: “Again. Again.”
- Line 19: “I”
- Line 21: “Boredom,” “I'm,” “bored,” “I”
- Line 22: “I,” “stole,” “I”
- Line 23: “I”
- Line 25: “I'm”
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Colloquialism
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Personification
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Metaphor
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Imagery
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Rhetorical Question
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Enjambment
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Caesura
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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Assonance
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"Stealing" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Mute
- Mate
- Ton
- Mucky
- Pinch
- Booted
- Daft
- Bust
- Nicked
- Flogged
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(Location in poem: Line 2: “a tall, white mute”)
Unable to speak or communicate.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Stealing”
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Form
The poem’s 25 lines are divided into five cinquains, or five-line stanzas. Each stanza is firmly end-stopped, meaning that the ending of each stanza coincides with the ending of a sentence.
This form gives the poem a measured, even quality, reinforcing the idea that the speaker is simply recounting their experiences in a casual, detached manner. The stanza breaks also feel like pauses in conversation, signaling slight shifts in what the speaker describes. Overall, the regularity of the form and the stanza breaks, then, convey the feeling of the speaker simply addressing the reader in a natural conversation.
At the same time, the poem includes other elements that convey the speaker’s alienation and disjointedness. Each stanza is an odd number of lines (five), and the poem also includes multiple instances of enjambment, which work in tension with the containment of the end-stopped lines and stanzas. These elements create a quality of instability and suggest that the speaker, too, is unstable and at odds with themselves, despite their casual, even presentation.
In addition to these formal elements, the poem is written in the mode of a persona poem, a type of poem that explores the perspective of someone other than the writer. The poem is also a dramatic monologue: through the poem the speaker seems to simply describe their theft of the snowman, but they also reveal a great deal about their character along the way.
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Meter
“Stealing” is a free-verse poem, meaning that it has no set meter.
This absence of meter is important to the poem: it helps to convey the sense that the speaker is addressing the reader directly in casual conversation, without any kind of pre-meditation. This sense of spontaneity becomes especially important as the poem progresses, and the speaker (inadvertently) reveals more and more about themselves and the alienation they truly feel.
The absence of meter, along with the speaker’s use of colloquialisms and slang, might also help to convey the speaker’s socioeconomic class and relationship to society. If meter is associated with traditional poetic forms and a kind of literary upper crust, then the speaker of this poem is clearly someone who is not part of that elite. Instead, the poem gives voice to someone alienated from society as a whole, who further alienates themselves through their actions.
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Rhyme Scheme
As a free verse poem, “Stealing” has no set rhyme scheme. The lack of rhyme scheme helps to create the poem’s conversational quality, conveying the feeling of the speaker directly and casually talking to the reader.
At the same time, the poem does include several instances of internal rhyme and slant rhyme, which create music and emphasis. For example, the speaker refers to their own “brain” as a “slice of ice.” The internal rhyme of “slice” and “ice” reinforces the sense of the speaker’s mind as being ice-cold—lacking in empathy, feeling, and human connection.
Two instances of slant rhyme also appear toward the ending of the poem. First, the word “same” creates a slant rhyme with the British pronunciation of “[a]gain.” This slant rhyme creates emphasis, heightening the sense that the speaker is kicking the snowman apart because it doesn’t look the “same.” In effect, the speaker is unable to recreate the quality of innocence and joy the snowman originally had, so they destroy the snowman—and implicitly, also direct that anger and aggression toward themselves.
Finally, in the last stanza, “bust” creates a slant rhyme with “once,” calling attention to the fact that the speaker once stole a “bust”—a statue of the head and shoulders—of Shakespeare. This particular theft suggests that perhaps the speaker does steal to try to acquire or find some kind of meaning—in this case, through the meaning of literature and art. Yet here, once again, the speaker simply gets rid of the bust, viewing it, like everything else, as empty of meaning.
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“Stealing” Speaker
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The speaker of “Stealing” remains anonymous and ungendered throughout the poem. While the poem doesn’t reveal these details about the speaker's identity, it does reveal a lot about the speaker's character.
First, the speaker makes clear that they routinely steal from other people, apparently just for the fun of doing so, or because they are bored. They refer to their own mind as a “slice of ice,” suggesting that they lack empathy or a sense of connection to other people. The speaker also goes on to reveal that they even take pleasure in causing suffering; they say that part of the "thrill" in stealing the snowman was knowing that "children would cry" when they saw that their snowman was gone.
The speaker also reveals things about themselves indirectly. For instance, the constant repetition of “I” statements, and the fact that the speaker wants a “mate” (a friend) who is “mute” and can’t speak, show how self-involved the speaker is. Despite the fact that they are isolated and seem to want a friend, they also only want a friend who is a mirror of themselves. The speaker’s selfishness and inability to empathize make it impossible for them to form the connections they seem to crave.
Despite their apparently casual, callous manner, the speaker also reveals that they are fundamentally lonely and dislike not only other people, but themselves. For example, when the speaker violently destroys the snowman, they also direct this aggression toward themselves, since they have identified with the snowman all along.
The poem as a whole creates a portrait of someone who is profoundly alienated from society, but who also seems to compulsively reinforce this alienation through their selfish, destructive behavior.
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“Stealing” Setting
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While the poem never names its setting directly, several details suggest that the poem is set in a fairly ordinary, suburban location in the United Kingdom. The speaker uses British slang, like “booted” (a slang word for “kicked”), “nicked” (a slang word for “stole”), and “daft” (a slang word for “stupid”). The speaker also steals a snowman, which seems to be in the yard of a family home, and then tries to reassemble the snowman in their own yard—details which imply that the speaker lives in an average suburban setting.
Within this setting, much of the poem centers around the speaker’s experience stealing the snowman, an event that took place in winter and at “midnight.” This setting of cold, snow, and darkness is important to the poem, as it subtly conveys the speaker’s internal state: they are emotionally cold or disconnected, lack purpose or meaning in a kind of spiritual “darkness,” and are also fundamentally alone.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Stealing”
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Literary Context
Carol Ann Duffy included “Stealing” in her second poetry collection, Selling Manhattan, which was published in 1987. Selling Manhattan won the 1988 Somerset Maugham Award, a major UK award for young authors. The book includes multiple dramatic monologues, including “Stealing,” and as the publisher, Pan Macmillan writes, the collection “give[s] voices to those who are usually voiceless.” “Stealing” reflects this intention, since the speaker—dislikable and cruel as they are—is also someone alienated and isolated from society.
While Duffy published “Stealing,” and the collection in which it appeared, early in her career, she has gone on to publish dozens of other books, including collections of poetry, plays, and children’s literature. She would also go on to write many other well-known persona poems and dramatic monologues, including those in the collection The World’s Wife, which gives voice to female characters often left out of traditional myths and fairy tales. Her work often deals with issues of gender, different kinds of oppression, and love, and is written in clear, accessible language.
Duffy has cited numerous poets as early influences for her own work, including canonical Irish and English poets like W.B. Yeats and John Keats, as well as Modernist poets including Aimé Césaire. Duffy herself has had a major impact on literature within the UK. Born to working-class parents in Scotland, in 2009 Duffy became the first woman, the first Scottish poet, and the first openly LGBTQ person to become Poet Laureate of the UK. Along with Seamus Heaney, she is now one of the most widely taught poets in UK schools and her work is renowned for its empathy and sharp-edged insights into contemporary life.
Historical Context
Carol Ann Duffy wrote “Stealing” in 1987, when Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was re-elected. During this time, known as Thatcherism in the UK, the government implemented a range of policies that many saw as prioritizing profit over public welfare. For example, the government privatized what had previously been public services and dismantled regulations for a variety of industries. Both unemployment and crime reached record levels throughout the country during this era, and many people felt despair at what they viewed as a culture valuing profits over people.
The poem can be read as a response to this larger situation. The speaker is selfish and materialistic, stealing things for no real reason. Within this reading, the speaker’s proclamation that life is all about “taking what you want” can be read as reflecting the ethos of a society in which individual profit is prioritized over all else. The fact that the speaker is left alone and isolated, in turn, implies that such a focus on selfishness and greed erodes the very things that give life meaning, including art and human relationships.
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More “Stealing” Resources
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External Resources
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Thatcherism and Crime in the UK — Read this article at The Guardian to learn more about Thatcherism in the UK, and how the policies of the Thatcher government led to a rise in crime around the country.
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Essay on “Stealing” and Margaret Thatcher’s UK — Read more about how “Stealing” explores the alienation, anger, and loss of meaning experienced under Thatcherism in this essay that examines the poem alongside Patrick Keiller’s 1994 film, London. (The poem is examined in the second half of the essay.)
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Carol Ann Duffy's Biography — Read more about Carol Ann Duffy’s life and work on this biographical page from the Poetry Foundation.
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Animated Video of “Stealing” — Watch an animated version of “Stealing,” and listen to the poem read aloud, in this student-made video.
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Selling Manhattan — Read more about Selling Manhattan, the 1987 collection in which Carol Ann Duffy first published “stealing,” at the website of the book’s publisher, Pan Macmillan.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Carol Ann Duffy
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