Love me for whom/who I am [closed]

should we rather say 'love me for whom I am', or 'love me for who I am'? Which is grammatically correct, please? Thank you.

Solution 1:

Don't say "Love me for whom I am."

Most people would consider whom "incorrect" from a prescriptive standpoint in this context. There is a prescriptive "rule" saying that a sentence or clause using a form of to be, like I am a human being, is supposed to have both noun phrases in the same case. This rule isn't actually followed very much in current speech or writing for the pronouns me, him, her, us, them. Some people will say that "It is I" is "correct" and "It's me" is "incorrect", but I'd guess that is a minority viewpoint. But the pronoun whom is a special case: it is still often considered incorrect to break this rule when using the pronoun whom. This means that in "Who I am", who is correct because it is a subjective-case form, just like the pronoun I.

The external context (love me for...) is irrelevant to the use of "who" in "who I am". The usual rule for sentences like this is that the pronoun takes its form based on its role in the most deeply embedded clause that it is a part of.

Solution 2:

I understand the inclination to write for whom (which would in some contexts be correct), but in this case, the who/m belongs to the subordinate clause who I am, while the object of for is the whole of that clause. And in who I am, who/m must agree with the subject (I), which makes it who not whom.

(This is essentially the same as sumelic said.)