A Piece of Steak

“Sheer animal that he was, the eyes were the most animal-like feature about him. They were sleepy, lion-like—the eyes of a fighting animal.”

Throughout the text, the narration describes Tom in animalistic ways. He is often compared to a lion—the “king of the jungle,” just as Tom King used to be king of the ring. The zoomorphic imagery helps extend one of the central metaphors of the text: that the world of man is, like the world of nature, a cruel one in which only the strong survive.

“In the ring he struck to hurt, struck to maim, struck to destroy; but there was no animus in it. It was a plain business proposition.”

While the story describes Tom as kind and generous in his life outside the ring, he is the opposite when boxing. However, in the real world, Tom seems unable to control anything around him. The ring represents a world he can control: one in which there are rules he understands because both he and every other person there understand clearly that it is a world of conflict and struggle.

“As how 'e was thinkin' Sandel ud do ye to-night, an' as how yer score was comfortable big as it was.”

When Tom wishes he could have a steak, his wife, Lizzie, responds that the butchers would not give him credit because they assumed Tom would not do well against Sandel in the fight. She speaks in dialect, a literary device that phoneticizes the words as she would say them. Her dialect reveals a working-class background and adds realism and depth to her character (as is the case for Tom when he speaks or thinks as well).

“Besides, when a man is forty, it is harder to get into condition than when he is twenty.”

Before he even leaves for the fight, Tom is worried about his conditioning; he was unable to afford a sparring partner or set up a proper training regimen, and it’s harder to train at his age to begin with. The passage highlights two themes of the work: aging and poverty. Both of these burden Tom in the real world and in the sport of boxing—two arenas in which only the strong survive.

“And he was leaving it to go out into the night to get meat for his mate and cubs—not like a modern working-man going to his machine grind, but in the old, primitive, royal, animal way, by fighting for it.”

As Tom leaves his apartment to go to the fight with Sandel, the text compares him to a lion going out to fight for his pride. The text uses animalistic language to describe him many times, cementing the metaphor that Tom’s world is primal, like the jungle, and that only the strong survive. The passage also once again makes reference to the meat Tom yearns for the day of the fight. 

“He was an old un, and the world did not wag well with old uns.”

Tom recognizes his current state while walking to the Gayety. This quotation reveals his own thoughts in the dialect Tom would use while thinking, focusing on one of the story’s central lessons: that the world is cruel to people whose bodies have started to fail and will not win most of the struggles to survive.

“He was Youth, rising; and they were Age, sinking.”

As a young man, Tom found success fighting aging boxers—a fact he only recognizes now that he is past his prime. Tom’s current foe in the ring is not Sandel so much as what Sandel represents: youth (which the text often capitalizes as though “Youth” itself were a character). Tom’s realization indicates that the world of boxing, like the world itself, is cyclical, with youth always beating old age. 

“And, as Tom King thus ruminated, there came to his stolid vision the form of Youth, glorious Youth, rising exultant and invincible, supple of muscle and silken of skin, with heart and lungs that had never been tired and torn and that laughed at limitation of effort. Yes, Youth was the Nemesis.” 

Even before he sees Sandel, Tom knows that Sandel will embody Youth and that what he’s truly fighting is Youth, not Sandel. Tom associates Youth with a healthy heart and lungs in part because he knows past fights have hardened his own arteries. Youth will always have an advantage over him, then, because a young fighter has not been ravaged by time yet and has a body that will reenergize itself with ease. 

“King was glad that he had him for referee. They were both old uns. If he should rough it with Sandel a bit beyond the rules, he knew Ball could be depended upon to pass it by.”

In the ring, Tom recognizes only a few faces, as the crowd is made up mostly of younger people. However, he recognizes the referee, who is also a member of the old guard. In the ring, Tom knows there are different rules, and he is comfortable pushing the line on those rules, especially knowing that a contemporary of his is likely to be sympathetic. 

“It was the way of Youth, expending its splendor and excellence in wild insurgence and furious onslaught, overwhelming opposition with its own unlimited glory of strength and desire.”

Once the fight starts, Sandel begins punching Tom quickly and furiously. Tom recognizes that these punches are not strong enough to actually hurt him and continues to employ his strategy of conserving energy and tiring Sandel out. Tom has a wisdom he has earned from years of fighting and recognizes that Sandel lacks that same wisdom; the implication here is that Tom wishes he could have the wisdom of age and the vigor of youth, but such a combination is impossible.

“But that was the trouble. Sandel would never become a world champion. He lacked the wisdom, and the only way for him to get it was to buy it with Youth; and when wisdom was his, Youth would have been spent in buying it.”

Tom recognizes that Sandel is a good fighter both because of and in spite of his age. He has power and vigor, although he lacks the wisdom to know how to conserve that vigor. However, the acquisition of wisdom is impossible without sacrificing one’s youth, which implies that the world is stacked against the young just as much as the old.

“Youth will be served—this saying flashed into King's mind, and he remembered the first time he had heard it, the night when he had put away Stowsher Bill.”

Tom remembers his youthful fight with Stowsher Bill at various points in the story. That night, he heard a saying that he remembers: that “Youth will be served.” He did not understand it then but now does: The world is cruel to the aged because youth will always win the struggle to survive.

“Ah, that piece of steak would have done it! He had lacked just that for the decisive blow, and he had lost. It was all because of the piece of steak.”

When Tom cannot muster the power necessary to defeat Sandel, he thinks back to the piece of steak he craved throughout the day but could not afford. Though it’s likely he would’ve lost the fight anyway, Tom blames his hunger. The mention of steak so late in the text completes the cyclical structure of the story and also highlights the cycle of poverty—because Tom cannot afford meat, he cannot win the fight and earn money to afford meat.