Summary Of In Time Of Plague

The structure of In Time of Plague puts us in the mind of the speaker and gives us his view of the conversation that is taking place in the gay bar. The first stanza of the poem it introduces the reader that the speaker is thinking about the plague that is happening within the gay community of AIDS, and despite this he cannot control his sexual attraction. This is shown when two handsome men named Brad and John ask him to shoot up, the speaker is almost hypnotized by these two men’s appearances that he doesn’t care that what’s on Brad and John’s mind is death. In the second stanza it addresses the situation of the speaker, Brad and John are gay and that they are also in a gay bar with people coming in and out of it. The speaker goes on to explain
that the people inside the bar are searching for “euphoria-for a state of ardent life”. The speaker tries to enter the mind of Brad and John but then he questions their mentality all together and is no longer fooled by their attractiveness. In the third stanza this is when the speaker has to choose whether he wants to keep his health or if he wants to have poor health like the two attractive men. In the last stanza Brad and John grow tired of the speaker being indecisive so Brad and John go looking for someone else who will be willing to annihilate their health. As the reader understands the structure of the poem, breaking down this conversation into four stanzas, and the situation of two attractive men with deceitful intentions it can lead us to the meaning of this poem. The meaning behind this poem was to show the time of when AIDS was traveling rapidly from one person to another, and this situation exemplifies it. At the beginning of the poem he explains that his thoughts are surrounded by death and it draws onto his sexuality, and for a moment he forgets this by the two handsome men. But by the end of the poem the speaker realizes that he cannot forget the pandemic that is happening, and no gorgeous face should be worth the risk of catching a disease. If the speaker chose to shoot up with the two attractive men he could have been infected with the AIDS that fast, but by stepping back and assessing the situation he realized risking his health wasn’t worth it.