What The Cathedral Said To The Black Boy

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In “what the cathedral said to the black boy”, the speaker, the cathedral, talks to the black boy, asking thought-provoking questions while attempting to convince him to rename himself as well as rethink his perception of himself. As the poem shifts from a more comforting tone to an imploring challenge, Smith uses unconventional sentence patterns, vocabulary, and tonal shift to stress the importance of a positive mindset where the black boy needs to believe in himself to be possible of success in order to achieve it while the stereotype-influenced world makes it clear it expects little of him. The first line of the poem, “come inside child / rest yourself” is a very comforting statement to start the poem, in contrast to the past ones in which …show more content…

It asks, “what does that ocean tell you child? that they’re frightened of you?” While the experience of talking to the ocean was more negative and condescending, the cathedral’s question asking if “they’re frightened of you” challenges the black boy to think of the conversation in a different way. During that conversation, the ocean had the upper hand with its taunts, the cathedral extracts some positivity and power, giving it to the black boy as it states “they fear you because they ain’t ready for your type of holy” referencing the fact that the black boy has an advantage spiritually and therefore should think more of himself, tracing back to the theme of a positive mindset while connecting with the perception of oneself. Then comes the conclusion to the poem, going back to a more comforting tone as the cathedral instructs the black boy to “close [his] eyes” describing them as “those stained glass shadows.” This statement again follows the theme of the necessity of a positive mindset, creating a multitude of possibilities out of one lens by painting the picture of what one

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