The Speaker
The speaker is the main character and protagonist of “I Am!” He is socially isolated, forgotten by his old friends and fundamentally different from the people he once loved. He has a tenuous grip on reality, unsure of where his emotions and identity begin and end. This instability has led him to abandon his ambitions. The speaker’s impossible situation leads him to desire the simplicity and calm of death.
God
In the final stanza God appears as the speaker’s ideal companion. The speaker can achieve real closeness with God, unlike with his friends. The poem emphasizes God’s status as the “Creator” of the world, perhaps because of the speaker’s lasting attachment to the grass and the sky that he believes God made.
The Friends
The speaker’s social isolation and his resulting loss of a clear sense of self derive from the loss of his friends. He states that they have left him behind “like a memory lost,” forgotten him so utterly that he entirely ceases to exist for them. Yet he also suggests that they have become “strange” to him, or so different from him that they feel like strangers.
