I Know It's Over by Steven Patrick Summary This is a dark, perhaps morbid, but sensitive and intelligent text, which most critics see as the end of an imaginary relationship or fantasy. But the interpretation can be much deeper, indeed, a bottomless pit for those who are prone to wallowing in helplessness and suicidal thoughts. There are four distinct sections that are not entirely connected and this leads to a variety of interpretations in connecting them, allowing the audience to project their own feelings onto the words. Yet, emotional intensity seems to produce euphoria[1] and not depression (perhaps more in performance than in poetry). Speculation about the meaning of jokes (as long as it's not excessive) can lead to satisfying entertainment. Structure The first section describes our hero's immediate state of mind with the image of his empty bed like a tomb: Oh mother, I can feel the earth falling over my head, and as I climb into an empty bedOh, well. That said, as if buried alive, the melancholic protagonist feels that his life might as well be over: I know it's over, but I hold on/I don't know where else I can go. Perhaps an intense relationship has come to an end, leading to thoughts of despair and suicide, but it may be less obvious. He equates imagined imminent death with a feeling of utter helplessness, but it appears that death is not an option because he finds it difficult to act, as we will see. So even though the sea wants to take me/the knife wants to hurt me, it seems like it doesn't want it. He asks me: do you think you can help me? but whose? His mother... in the center of the paper... states that love is natural and real: is she afraid that for people like you and me, my love is unnatural and imaginary? Themes Typically for this writer the themes are unrequited love, isolation, loneliness, impotence, etc. Wildean themes are, perhaps, in the mind of the reader/listener. In fact, the vagueness and overall ambiguity, typical of this author, together with the complexity of the structure allow for a dichotomy of interpretations.----------------------- -- -----------------------------------[1] However, I recognize David Pinching, writing in his essay Oscar Wilde's influence on Stephen Fry and Morrissey, when he says that "Wilde represents isolation within one's own world and a great set of theories about the most irrelevant and absurd things".