Analyse af Metallicas 'The Unforgiven'

The poem “The Unforgiven” (1991) by Metallica is about a man (speaker), who is talking about his problematic childhood and supression of the individual.

The author creates a distance in the verses by talking in the 3. person. In the refrain he disbands this distance by switching to the 1. person.

He is in his late years of life and, as said, talks about his life. The listener can feel, that he is positively thinking about his future, because he never will get subdued from society again. He is not adressing to someone in particular, but the song is for the society, it is a kind of farewell letter, because the fight against the supression is over.

The poem is divided into stanzas and has a metrical rythm. There are some regular and some irregular rhymes in the poem, this fact creates a tension, that is disbanded and rebuilded from time to time.

There is a dominant use of verbs, but the verbs don’t describe action, instead of that, the author uses the verbs to illustrate his feelings and emotions.

There are repetitions of the words ‘what’ and ‘never’. The word “never” is repeated, because it is an important word for the song. It’s all about never: He was never himself, was never free, will never know what happened if he would have been himself.