At the Gym Essay -- Literary Analysis, Mark Doty

At the Gym, written by Mark Doty, dramatizes the conflict within the sound judgement of a muscle and his desire to motley who and what he is. The verbaliser observes the routines of the bodybuilder bench-pressing at a local gym, and attempts to explain the driving force that compels him to interchange his appearance. The speaker illustrates the physical use of dyspnoeal objects as the tools used for the desire transformation and hoist nothing that need be lifted (5,6). However, linked with but some burden theyve chosen this time (7), the speaker takes the voice beyond the physical use of the tools of transformation and delves into the bodybuilders intellectual state. The speaker ends by portraying the bodybuilder as an arrogant, muscular universe with fragile feelings of insecurity. Similar to a church altar where baptisms take place, the speaker begins by depicting the bench press as an altar of change and transformation. Illustrating the setting in this mann er suggests that the speaker begins to wonders what drives the bodybuilder to lift an inanimate object repeatedly w...