In Dudley Randall’s poem “Ballad of Birmingham”, a mother and young daughter alternately express their opposing feelings about the daughter attending a freedom march with other children throughout the streets of Birmingham. Ironically, the mother has her daughter make the “safer choice” of going to church instead of marching the streets. The author uses a variety of figurative speech to display the sorrow, irony, and pain in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Randall’s poem alludes to the historical bombing of 16th Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama by white terrorists. The church bombing occurred on September 15, 1963. The bomb detonated on a Sunday morning before the church services began. The 16th Street Baptist Church predominantly consisted of a black congregation and also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders, like Martin Luther King Jr. Four young girls attending Sunday school were killed and many other people were injured. Outrage over …show more content…
She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, / And bathed rose petal sweet, / And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, / And white shoes on her feet” (5.17,18,19,20). Randall wants us to picture the girl as delicate, innocent, and pure as possible. The image of the young girl is meant to be carried on until the end of the poem where the mom pulls the daughter’s shoe from the rubble. Randall also uses a metaphor in this stanza. He describes her hair as “night-dark hair” (5.17) which is comparing the girl’s hair to the color of night-time. In stanza 8, when Randall writes “she clawed through bits of glass and brick” he literally means the mother dug through the wreckage to find her daughter, but the “bits of glass” could also be a metaphor, comparing the girl to glass. The young girl is fragile, and when the bomb exploded, her delicate life was shattered, just like the
She starts by telling us what she thinks the dead are doing. She is putting this picture in the reader’s head of dead down by the river drinking to start out the poem. The second line and the beginning of the third line talking about unburdening themselves of their fears and worries for us makes the reader think of someone that has passed that they knew. By saying this, she is trying to get the point across that the dead are thinking of us, like we think of them. The thought of the dead still caring and worried about us will later be strengthened in the poem when the writer starts using memories in the poem. Mitchell then says “They take out the old photographs.” she starts using memories to start making feelings more deep. Lines four and five continue this, stating “They pat the lines in our hands and tell our futures, which are cracked and yellow.”. These lines contain a metaphor comparing our futures to something cracked and yellow. Her directly stating that our futures are cracked and yellow, gives a very depressing vibe. This is foreshadowing that she is depressed about something, that we will later find about at the end of the poem. In the first five lines of the poem, the writer is talking about the the dead and what they are doing. Even though she doesn’t really know what they are doing, she puts a picture in our
Dudley Randall was born on January 19, 1914 in Washington D.C. and died on August 2, 2000 in Southfield, Michigan. His mother Ada Viloa was a teacher and his father Arthur George Clyde Randall was a Congregational minister. His father was very much into politics because of that Dudley and his brother would listen to prominent black speakers. When Randall was about nine years old he and his family move to Detroit, Michigan in 1920. By the time he was thirteen he had his first poem published in the Detroit Free Press. At the age of sixteen he had graduated from high school.
...t she has put on a new “costume” and is now a completely different person. The stockings are “night-black” representing the backyard and its negative connotation. In line twenty, the author writes that she wants to “strut down the streets with paint on [her] face,” again emphasizing Brooks’ new rebellious nature since crossing over into the backyard. The “paint” suggests that her rebellion is just and act, and as soon as she removes the paint, she can return to the front yard if she pleases. The repetition of “and” at the beginning of the last three lines illustrates Brooks’ desire to completely rebel against her mother and the front yard life since it shows how she wants to rebel in so many ways. The main theme of the poem highlights the desire people have to experience what they do not have and live life on their own terms.
The readers are apt to feel confused in the contrasting ways the woman in this poem has been depicted. The lady described in the poem leads to contrasting lives during the day and night. She is a normal girl in her Cadillac in the day while in her pink Mustang she is a prostitute driving on highways in the night. In the poem the imagery of body recurs frequently as “moving in the dust” and “every time she is touched”. The reference to woman’s body could possibly be the metaphor for the derogatory ways women’s labor, especially the physical labor is represented. The contrast between day and night possibly highlights the two contrasting ways the women are represented in society.
Hughes starts his poem by identifying the victims of the story. Hughes does not use as many rhymes, exact or slant, as Randall. As a result, the poem seemed to take a darker, serious tone. Unlike Randall, who recounted the bombing in the form of a backstory, Hughes took a more broad perspective. Hughes, first focuses on the victims, describing their death with blood on the walls, splattered flesh around the room. By adding these details, readers know that the four girls were the victims and how they died was horrid. Hughes also mentions torn to depict that what happened was painful for the victims, family, and to those who knew them. Hughes changes the direction of the poem, associating the dynamite with China and the red communist flag with the blood on the walls of the Sunday School. Hughes in his poem seems as if he is specifically angry with the Chinese for creating the explosive, dynamite. Hughes ends his poem without a doubt that the victims are dead, unlike Randall who leaves his open for speculation. Hughes also ends his poem saying that his hope is that one day, four girls will wake up to songs on the breeze, unfelt by magnolia trees. Though a magnolia tree is grown in the south, it is also commonly grown indoors in China. So, Hughes could be saying that even though the lives of four girls were taken by explosives created by the
The poem 'The Ballad of Birmingham', by Dudley Randall, is based on the historical event of the bombing in 1963 of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s church by white terrorists. It is a poem in which a daughter expresses her interest in attending a civil rights rally and the mother fearful for her daughter's safety refuses to let her go. In the poem the daughter in fighting for the course of the operessed people of her time/generation instead of going out to play. She is concerned with securing the freedom of her people during the civil rights era in the 1960s. Hence, in lines 3 and 4 she says ?And marc the streets of Birmingham?. ?In a freedom march today.
The girl's mother is associated with comfort and nurturing, embodied in a "honeyed edge of light." As she puts her daughter to bed, she doesn't shut the door, she "close[s] the door to." There are no harsh sounds, compared to the "buzz-saw whine" of the father, as the mother is portrayed in a gentle, positive figure in whom the girl finds solace. However, this "honeyed edge of li...
In Dundley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham,” a mother-daughter debate over the freedom march breathes the characters into life by empowering them with exclusive voices. Furthering the mother and daughter’s story through a third voice, Randall introduces the narrator’s cold and callous voice in the fifth stanza. The voices in the ballad emotionally connect the readers to the characters and the bombing of Birmingham.
There is no safe place in the world. “Ballad of Birmingham” proves that by telling the tragic tale of a young girl and her mother. No matter what a building symbolizes or how much determination is spent on keeping love ones safe, life or destiny will occur. “Ballad of Birmingham” approaches the bombing of Birmingham in 1963 from a sentimental point of view, providing a unique insight into the story. The story of a mother and daughter, as described in the “Ballad of Birmingham,” cannot be understood unless the loss of a loved one has been experience first-hand.
In the year 1963, many events took place in this year from blacks boycotting Boston buses to the assassination of JFK. However, that is not what is going to be elaborated on in this essay. It is going to be about the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama (Simkin). There are a lot of things a reader may not know, unless that reader is a historian or has looked up this topic before. In 1963 a local black church was about to have their 11:00 a.m. service on Sunday, September 15 (Trueman). In the women’s room of the church are four African American girls, Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Cynthia Wesley (14), which were getting ready for the service while also talking about their first day of school (Simkin), until their whole world would be changed and they wouldn’t know it.
Although the little girl doesn’t listen to the mother the first time she eventually listens in the end. For example, in stanzas 1-4, the little girl asks if she can go to the Freedom March not once, but twice even after her mother had already denied her the first time. These stanzas show how the daughter is a little disobedient at first, but then is able to respect her mother’s wishes. In stanzas 5 and 6, as the little girl is getting ready the mother is happy and smiling because she knows that her little girl is going to be safe, or so she thinks. By these stanzas the reader is able to tell how happy the mother was because she thought her daughter would be safe by listening to her and not going to the March. The last two stanzas, 7 and 8, show that the mother senses something is wrong, she runs to the church to find nothing, but her daughter’s shoe. At this moment she realizes that her baby is gone. These stanzas symbolize that even though her daughter listened to her she still wasn’t safe and is now dead. The Shoe symbolizes the loss the mother is going through and her loss of hope as well. This poem shows how elastic the bond between the daughter and her mother is because the daughter respected her mother’s wish by not going to the March and although the daughter is now dead her mother will always have her in her heart. By her having her
From the combination of enjambed and end-stopped lines, the reader almost physically feels the emphasis on certain lines, but also feels confusion where a line does not end. Although the poem lacks a rhyme scheme, lines like “…not long after the disaster / as our train was passing Astor” and “…my eyes and ears…I couldn't think or hear,” display internal rhyme. The tone of the narrator changes multiple times throughout the poem. It begins with a seemingly sad train ride, but quickly escalates when “a girl came flying down the aisle.” During the grand entrance, imagery helps show the importance of the girl and how her visit took place in a short period of time. After the girl’s entrance, the narrator describes the girl as a “spector,” or ghost-like figure in a calm, but confused tone. The turning point of the poem occurs when the girl “stopped for me [the narrator]” and then “we [the girl and the narrator] dove under the river.” The narrator speaks in a fast, hectic tone because the girl “squeez[ed] till the birds began to stir” and causes her to not “think or hear / or breathe or see.” Then, the tone dramatically changes, and becomes calm when the narrator says, “so silently I thanked her,” showing the moment of
The poem contains the central idea that many of these children never understood what home really means. In Native American culture the people venerate earth and it is referred to as mother nature which we see in the poem. The rails cut right through their home but they don’t view them like the average person. They view the tracks as if they are scars across mother earths face and her face is the Native American’s homeland. She is scarred for eternity but she is perfect in their dreams. This symbolism is ironic because the children try to reach home using the railroad that ruined natural life for them and many other Native Americans. In the second stanza the speaker says “The worn-down welts of ancient punishments lead back and fourth” (15-16). Which can be talking about the marks on the children’s bodies after getting caught while running away. But the “word-down welts” can also symbolize the welts that were put on mother nature throughout history. The last five lines of the poem sums up the symbol of hope through their memories and dreams. The last line of the poem says, “the spines of names and leaves.” (20-24). The “spines” symbolize the physical strength of the children and their ability to maintain hope individually “names”, and for their tribe
The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and
Dudley Randall's Ballad of Birmingham gives a poetic account of the bombing of a Birmingham church in 1963. The poem was written in ballad form to convey the mood of the mother to her daughter. The author also gives a graphic account of what the 1960's were like. Irony played a part also in the ballad showing the church as the warzone and the freedom march as the safer place to be.