The Raped Girl's Father "Bones, she was diced-bones rolled on black." The Raped Girl's Father is a disturbing poem about a girl who is "unluckily" raped, and how this brings incredible anger and shame to her father. Written by Bruce Dawe, it contains an inept use of thought, feeling and language. It is an absorbing evocation of the girl's feelings and her horrendous suffering, and how her identity has changed as a consequence of the rape -for herself, her father and society. In the first two lines, an aural image is employed to indicate a never-ending anger in the girl's father. Dawe uses onomatopoeia to create a disturbing and upsetting description of his enraged "buzz-saw whine." An annoying, upsetting sound, it gives the impression of lasting ceaselessly. His anger "rose /murderously in his throat." Because "murderously" begins on a new line, a greater emphasis is placed on it and its evil and destructive connotations. An image of a growling lion stalking its prey is evoked in the reader, as it threateningly snarls from its throat. The girl is terrified as it preys on her persistently "throughout the night." Furthermore, because there is no punctuation, these few lines are without a rest, and when reading out aloud, they cause breathlessness. This suggests that the father's "righteous" fury is ceaseless and suffocating the girl. 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... ... middle of paper ... ...rators of the deed, but more importantly a disturbing comparison, for no one would ever `wish' to be raped. Yet, the girl has been tormented to such an extreme and desperate state that she now `wishes' the rapists would "repass, /and at that stage be merciful, take her back." Rather than being raped and alive, preferable to her would be another attack and the comfort of death, to lie "blank-faced, on the grass." Bruce Dawe's purpose is to convey something about rape to the reader. Written from the perspective of a raped girl, his heart-rending poem shares her intense suffering and the terrible impact that rape can have on both the victim and the family. But most importantly, Dawe evocatively comments on the "glare of blindness" that is often shown towards those who have tragically been subjected to rape -and calls for more compassion and understanding from all.
The beginning of the poem starts with a humorous tone. Kinnell begins his poem with a simile “snore like a bullhorn”, an “Irishman”, or playing “loud music” to express the idea of something that is really loud and noisy, but still cannot wake the son up as opposed to the child’s ability to wake up to “heavy breathing” and a “come-cry” (line1-7). The tone that the...
...in poetry and conveyed strong ideas to spark reevaluation towards situations that society faces each day. His poem, “Enter Without So Much As Knocking” challenged our conformity to materialism, and the prominence of such themes in popular culture. “Drifters” was another piece that told a story but allowed the opportunity for deeper evaluation. It questioned human’s ability to make sacrifices for the happiness of those around us, focusing on transience, stability and the hope for such things. “The Raped Girl’s Father” took a much deeper approach, and powerfully questioned the manner in which we judge rape victims in popular culture. It concentrated on the aftermath, rather than the rape itself and was written in a manner that could be related to society. Dawe created visionary works that allowed readers to re-assess their opinions and their approach to everyday life.
Bruce Dawe is considered to be one of Australia’s most influential poets of the 20th century. Dawe’s poems capture Australian life in numerous ways, whether it is our passion for AFL in Life-Cycle or our reckless nature towards war as in Homecoming. Dawe creates very complicated poems reflecting the author’s context relevant to the time period, your context is based upon your reading of the poem, where you may gather different meanings, to that of the original intent, hidden within the text.
Stanza three again shows doubtfulness about the mother’s love. We see how the mother locks her child in because she fears the modern world. She sees the world as dangers and especially fears men. Her fear of men is emphasized by the italics used. In the final line of the stanza, the mother puts her son on a plastic pot. This is somewhat symbolic of the consumeristic society i.e. manufactured and cheap.
She shows the true culture of her family’s life and how they act. Artistically, this frame includes lots of detail and is realistic. Behind the doors and windows is a blank, only shaded area. The conversation between the two sides shows the ignorance of her parents. While the child looks angry and seems to have looked everywhere (with the draws being opened already). This shows that the family does have transparency and doesn’t constantly cover-up the truth.
Most readers of Dudley Randall’s “Ballad Of Birmingham” have said or heard the “But mom…” before and so this use of voice brings life to the daughter and mother. By using a relatable spoken phrase, Dudley Randall creates an atmosphere where the reader feels connected with the daughter.
To begin, Morrison establishes a healthy confusion by developing Beloved. Beloved is first introduced to the reader as the ghost of Sethe’s dead daughter. The ghost haunts Sethe’s house, 124. “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom” (3). Morrison creates abstract diction through the use of the word spiteful. The denotation of the spiteful
In Harry Mulisch’s novel The Assault, the author not only informs society of the variance in perception of good and evil, but also provides evidence on how important it is for an innocent person experiencing guilt to come to terms with their personal past. First, Mulisch uses the characters Takes, Coster, and Ploeg to express the differences in perspective on the night of the assault. Then he uses Anton to express how one cannot hide from the past because of their guilt. Both of these lessons are important to Mulisch and worth sharing with his readers.
Joe and Bazil 's status as the immediate family members to a sexual assault survivor allows readers to see how sexual assault can impact an entire family unit; a frequent situation that many people find themselves in, but don 't know how to sensibly handle emotionally. Through Joe 's perspective as a child in this novel, Erdrich guides her audience into understanding how complex of a societal issue sexual assault is by displaying how far reaching its effects are on the victim, family, and community of a
The narrator, Twyla, begins by recalling the time she spent with her friend, Roberta, at the St. Bonaventure orphanage. From the beginning of the story, the only fact that is confirmed by the author is that Twyla and Roberta are of a different race, saying, “they looked like salt and pepper” (Morrison, 2254). They were eight-years old. In the beginning of the story, Twyla says, “My mother danced all night and Roberta’s was sick.” This line sets the tone of the story from the start. This quote begins to separate the two girls i...
The Narrator’s family treats her like a monster by resenting and neglecting her, faking her death, and locking her in her room all day. The Narrator’s family resents her, proof of this is found when the Narrator states “[My mother] came and went as quickly as she could.
Early in the film , a psychologist is called in to treat the troubled child :and she calmed the mother with a statement to the effect that, “ These things come and go but they are unexplainable”. This juncture of the film is a starting point for one of the central themes of the film which is : how a fragile family unit is besieged by unusual forces both natural and supernatural which breaks and possesses and unites with the morally challenged father while the mother and the child through their innocence, love, and honesty triumph over these forces.
...ses represent the physical absence of her mother. Implicitly, however, these objects symbolize the lost memories of her mother. The possessive nature of the “mother’s watch” shows that its loss was not welcome. In Morrison’s story when Twyla and Roberta connect many years after staying at the orphanage, Roberta suggests that Maggie, the “kitchen woman with legs like parentheses,” was black (Morrison, 245). Twyla then claims that Maggie was her “dancing mother,” meaning that she was “dead” and “dumb” in addition to being “nobody who would hear you if you cried in the night” (259). The grief Twyla experiences suggests that she felt as though no one cared, that no one had cared for her mother either.
In the movie Half the Sky Nicholas Kristof traveled to zzzzzz to document the life of a woman. What he found there was violence, rape, child abuse, and just woman abuse in general. In the story Nicholas Kristof documents a girl named zzzzz and her life after being raped and tries to help her but sadly nothing really can happen to fix it and justice is not served. Rape affects us all not just on a personal level but also on a social and even structural level.
Although the poet uses diction to express her feelings towards her father, she also uses descriptive images to visualize and describe the frequent routine in which she goes from harsh to peaceful. Throughout the poem Levi describes her father’s arranged actions as she wait almost impatiently for her father to call. “I can feel it coming. He’s been awake for hours. He checks his watch, pulls the phone on his lap like a recalcitrant child…” (5-7) Levi describes