Metamorphosis of self
A metamorphosis causes a marked and abrupt change in the nature of something. In "The Liar," self-analysis sets off a metamorphosis in the speaker, starting with the awareness of a change in his emotions: "What I thought was love / in me, I find a thousand instances / as fear," (lines 1-3). The speaker has come to the startling realization that the affection that he thought he felt towards things he held dear was actually a feeling of fear. The speaker of this poem talks about his inclination towards change in his life later on in the poem:
Though I am a man
who is loud
on the birth
of his ways (lines 12-5).
It is clear that the speaker is conscious of the changes within himself as they are happening and tells other people about them. This change in himself is an opportunity for "birth" rather than a cause of destruction. The theme of a metamorphosis of self leads to a hopeful testimony about the power of change for renewal in a constantly-shifting outside world. Additionally, it connects to the other main theme of this poem, Separation/Unity of the Body and Soul, as the metamorphosis seems to be generated out of his difficulty in separating his soul (his true self) from his body (how the world perceives him).
Separation/Unity of the Body and the Soul
Like in "An Agony. As Now," Baraka focuses on the theme of the separation/unity of the body and soul. The motifs of the body and the soul are important in any poem about identity, and they implicitly introduce the question of how the individual is understood. There is a tension between knowing one's own true self (one's soul) and understanding oneself as the rest of the world understands one (through the perception of one's body).
In this poem, Baraka is interested in how much the body and the soul can be separated, if at all. In Stanza II, the speaker says that he cannot fully focus on his body without some of his soul coming through: "Where ever I go to claim / my flesh, there are entrances / of spirit." Despite this, the body's "comforts" are "hideous uses" that the speaker cannot understand. Unlike "An Agony. As Now," which focused on a complete division between body and soul, the speaker in this poem cannot fully separate his self from his body, even though it seems like he wants to, since he is trying to "claim" his body in order to analyze it more.
Once the speaker undergoes a metamorphosis, however, the separation between body and soul becomes more distinct. The speaker says that he "profited biblically" from a change in his soul. This change in his soul leads to a change in how his body is perceived. His face is no longer recognizable: "even though / their chanting weight, / erased familiarity / from my face." The change in his soul transformed who he was to such an extent that his exterior no longer matched his interior self. His body is no longer familiar to himself or others.
