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Ballad of birmingham analysis
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The tragic poem, “The Ballad of Birmingham,” begins with a young child asking an imploring question to her mother, “May I go downtown instead of out to play” (Randall, 669)?
The author, Dudley Randall, illustrates the conflict and irony between the mother and her child. The mother only wants to protect her child from the dangers that await her, but the child on the other hand, only wants to be a part of the Freedom March in Birmingham, Alabama. “The Ballad of Birmingham” was written about the real life events of the bombing that took place in Birmingham, Alabama at the church of Martin Luther King, Jr by white terrorists. Though the bombing was tragic and resulted in the death of four innocent African American girls and injuring fourteen other people, the racist bombing was a dramatic turning point in the United States Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Dudley Randall shows that even though the mother has good intentions, they are not good enough to protect her daughter from an untimely death.
Though most of the poem is not dialogue, from what little speaking there is between the...
As serene as the speaker may try to appear in the poem “Changes” by D. Ginette Clarke, Clarke’s “calm” way of delivering the speakers message unintentionally brings forward his eager and desperate side; and this is revealed by Clarke’s use of the repetition of words. To begin, D. Ginette Clarke writes the poem with a distinguished amount of words in which she repeats. She does this to show that the persona is eager to get some answers and clarification as to why his relationship with this person has ended. The first line of the first stanza says “Speak to me” (Clarke, 1), and the obvious question of who the speaker is speaking to is soon revealed: “While last year you were my friend? / More than my friend, my confidante, my soul-be” (6-7). Later, Clarke beings to reveal the curiosity of the persona by using question marks. The speaker begins to constantly ask questions like “Why? / Why is it now we can’t talk together / Why must you tell him that secret?” (3,...
The poem told the story of a man who is inhibited by language, and has never quite had the ability to articulate his thoughts and feeling through words. It is said that his family members have tried
The informal language and intimacy of the poem are two techniques the poet uses to convey his message to his audience. He speaks openly and simply, as if he is talking to a close friend. The language is full of slang, two-word sentences, and rambling thoughts; all of which are aspects of conversations between two people who know each other well. The fact that none of the lines ryhme adds to the idea of an ordinary conversation, because most people do not speak in verse. The tone of the poem is rambling and gives the impression that the speaker is thinking and jumping from one thought to the next very quickly.
In this book, it shows examples of racial strife includes segregation, physical attacks and emotional abuse. The Logan family was treated indescribably. The book starts showing racial strife when the children of the black family has to go to a different school than the white children for that very reason. This book shows the way racism from the 1930’s and how much it’s changed compared to today. If we treated African Americans the same way starting in the 1930’s we wouldn’t have had so much commotion that we have today. In “Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry” the blacks were so segregated that they had to go to different schools, and they didn’t even have a bus to walk to schools which took an hour there and back.
... is shown moreover through these pauses. We also see that he places question marks at the end of sentences, which is another way he is showing us the uncertainty in the voice of society. Through his punctuation and word placement, we clearly see the voice of society in his poem, but in a way that tells us not to conform to it.
Anytime dialogue is used in this poem it is mainly positive. In the second to last paragraph of the poem, the lover and the brother engage in one last conversation before the brother leaves. The lover says to the brother “Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him after he told you. He did” (Lassell pr. 12 line 6). The dialogue acts as a key point in the brother’s forgiveness process. When the main character forgives himself he also reminded of another challenge that his brother had to face. His brother wasn’t accepted by him but he still had the love in his heart to forgive his brother. This shines a light on the change of attitude the main character had towards his brother. “I never thought I was good enough looking to deserve your brother” (Lassell pr. 4 line 5). The use of dialogue here lets the reader and main character understand the love that the lover had for the brother and how good of a man he must have been. This evidently changes the main character’s attitude towards the
The speakers and audience in poem are crucial elements of the poem and is also the case in these poems. In the poem Untitled, it can be argued that the poem is being written by Peter based on what his father might say to him...
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.
In the poem “Ballad of Birmingham”, by Dudley Randall, many different things can be analyzed. The difference in the two translations; one being a literal translation, telling the true meaning of the poem, and the other being a thematic translation, which tells the author’s theme and symbolism used in his/her work. Another thing that all poets have in common is the usage of poetic devices; such as similes, metaphors, and personification.
Randall starts the ballad by presenting the setting for the poem. He uses its’ title, “Ballad of Birmingham”, and the references to the city and the marches in the first, third, and seventh stanzas to show that it is a day of “Freedom March(es)” (4) in Birmingham. He also uses the subtitle (On the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963) to
Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall. 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.
Would you thick that Byron and Kenny would change that much in the end of the story? I think that Byron is sensitive because he started to cry when he kills the bird with a cookie and when Kenny was drowning in the lake. Byron was crying and kissing Kenny in the head. Kenny is depressed because he had a lazy eye and because of the bomb that happened in the Sunday school church.
E. Shifts: There are no shifts in speaker throughout the poem but the attitude of
The “Ballad of Birmingham” is written by Dudley Randall. It was written in 1963, after the church bombing in Birmingham. The author wrote this poem as a tribute to the victims of the bombing. The theme of the poem is race and violence. This poem gives a hint about the socio-political environment during the segregation era. However, this poem was also used to make awareness about problems faced in society. The irony of the poem is that her mother thinks the political march is not a safe place for her daughter so, she sends her to church instead. What happens next is completely opposite, her mother hears an explosive sound in the church. The explosive was planted knowingly because it was an African-American church. This hate crime took four innocent lives.
A rhetorical strategy that this poem has is dialogue. The whole poem contains dialogue between the boy and girl who plan to meet each other in the orchard to be alone.