The poem “Ballad of Birmingham”, written by Dudley Randall, is about the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In this bombing four innocent children were killed and about 20 others injured. In this poem poetic devices such as irony, rhyme, and imagery play a major role in being able to see how far racial hatred has gone. The main irony in this story is that the mother told her daughter to go to church instead of the streets of Birmingham because it will be safer. Who would have ever known that the KKK would have decided to bomb the church that day. This is known as a situational irony because she sends her daughter to church instead so she can be safe but at the end of the day it was not safe. This poem is
an example of a ballad, which means that it was written more like a song with a lot of rhyming words. For instance, the reader can notice that the second and fourth line of each stanza rhyme. This personal helped me to be able to read this poem easier and help me focus on the point the author was trying portray. Another type of poetic device used in this story was imagery. The imagery that impacted me the most in this story to open my eyes to how vicious some people can be because of how much hatred they had toward a race is located through lines 30-32. I can picture the mother desperately looking and hoping for her baby girl to be alive. As soon as she found the shoe but could not find her I could picture myself there feeling her pain. In conclusion, it’s sad that because of how much hatred a group has towards a race they decide to bomb a church. Not caring if there was daughter, mothers, fathers, or sons in there. The poetic devices used in this poem open my eyes to see how cruel people can be. I feel like that is exactly what Randall was trying to do in this poem and he achieved it.
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.
In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the characters all turn out to have what they have been searching for all along (the lion was brave, the scarecrow could think, the tin man could feel, and Dorothy could have returned home at any time.
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.
Both poems have a parent that cares about them. The mother in “Ballad of Birmingham” tries to protect her daughter from potential violence by not letting her go to the freedom march. Even though the daughter really wants to go out to march and make a difference the mother sends her to safest place she knows. Chur...
Going to church in the ghetto in Birmingham was probably the safest place a mother could send her child. But this is where the irony takes place. The irony makes the church the warzone and place of destruction while the march was the safest place to be. The child was depicted as combed hair, freshly bathed, with white gloves, and white shoes, which is also ironic. The mother had sent an angel dressed in white to a firestorm from hell called church. The mother was completely sure that her daughter was safe until she
Susan Gable’s Trifles is focused on discovering the killer of a local farmer in the twentieth century. In this play the amount of irony is abundant and the irony always relates to solving the murder. The two types of irony that are most easily discerned in Trifles are verbal and situational irony. Irony is when an author uses words or a situation to convey the opposite of what they truly mean. Verbal irony is when a character says one thing but they mean the other. This can be seen in the way the men dismiss the women. Situational irony is when the setting is the opposite of what one would think it would be for what the play is. This is seen through the setting being in a kitchen and various other aspects of the
On September 15, 1963, in an act of white supremacist terrorism, a bomb exploded inside of the Birmingham Church in Birmingham, Alabama, taking the lives of four young girls, and injuring several others. The violent crime caused public outrage and drew national attention towards the Civil Rights Movement. In the poem, Ballad of Birmingham, author Dudley Randall speaks in the perspective of a mother to one of the victims of the attack. His use of dialogue, a standard ballad form, and distinct rhyming pattern, makes this poem accessible to a large audience. Dudley Randall uses tragic irony and imagery in his poem, Ballad of Birmingham, to evoke emotion and narrate the unforeseen tragedy of the bombing of the Birmingham Church
How is verbal irony used within Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Tale? The Canterbury Tales was written by poet Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the fourteenth-century. The Wife of Bath’s Tale is one of the many stories written within it. A major component of Chaucer’s style throughout the stories, is his use of irony. Chaucer uses various types of irony throughout the story, but he uses verbal irony specifically to relay to us the differences between how he describes Alisoun, the Wife of Bath, and how she describes herself.
Irony is a useful device for giving stories many unexpected twists and turns. In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," irony is used as an effective literary device. Situational irony is used to show the reader that what is expected to happen sometimes doesn't. Dramatic irony is used to clue the reader in on something that is happening that the characters in the story do not know about. Irony is used throughout Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" through the use of situational irony and the use of dramatic irony.
In 'Ballad of Birmingham,' Dudley Randall illustrates a conflict between a child who wishes to march for civil rights and a mother who wishes only to protect her child. Much of this poem is read as dialogue between a mother and a child, a style which gives it an intimate tone and provides insight to the feelings of the characters. Throughout the poem the child is eager to go into Birmingham and march for freedom with the people there. The mother, on the other hand, is very adamant that the child should not go because it is dangerous. It is obvious that the child is concerned about the events surrounding the march and wants to be part of the movement. The child expresses these feelings in a way the appears mature and cognizant of the surrounding world, expressing a desire to support the civil rights movement rather than to ?go out and play.? The desire to no longer be seen as a child and have her voice heard by those being marched against and by her mother (who can also be seen as an oppressive form of authority in this poem) is expressed by the first few lines. The opinion of the child is much like that of all young people who want to fight for their freedom.
In the short story, “What a Thought” by Shirley Jackson, situational irony is presented at the end. Throughout the short story, the main character, Margaret, is having morbid thoughts about killing her husband which are completely unwanted, “I never dreamed of killing him. I want him to live. Stop it, stop it,” she tells herself. Margaret's life seems splendid and very normal and she loves her husband very much, “Margaret found herself thinking with some pride that unlike many men she had heard about, her husband did not fall asleep after a particularily good dinner,” admiring how he is truly an amazing husband. Therefore, killing her husband was very unexpected which is ironic considering her picture perfect life and husband. The irony is
The novel, Lord of The Flies, is ironic at the end of chapter 5 because the kids see the adult world different from the themselves; the adults know more things and would handle things differently. At the end of the chapter 5, Piggy proclaimed, “Grownups know things” (94). Grownups only know what they have been taught. It is not likely that a teacher wouldn’t know how to live on a deserted island just as well the kids do. On the same page, Piggy continued saying “wouldn’t set fire to the to the island” (94). The problem is that fire is not fully controlled by humans. Many adults have house fires and start wild fires by accident no matter how old a person is. Piggy was nowhere close to the truth when he said, “They wouldn’t quarrel” (94). People
Irony can often be found in many literary works. “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is masterfully written full of irony. The characters of the short story, Mrs. Mallard, Josephine, Richards, Mr. Brently Mallard, and the doctors all find their way into Chopin’s ironic twists. Chopin embodies various ironies in “The Story of an Hour” through representations of verbal irony, dramatic irony, and situational irony.
In his dramatic monologue, Robert Browning uses irony, diction, and imagery to achieve a haunting effect.
The focus of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is the prejudice of Elizabeth Bennet against the apparent arrogance of her future suitor, Fitzwilliam Darcy, and the blow to his pride in falling in love with her. The key elements of the story are the irony, values and realism of the characters as they develop.