wisdom, between the daughter and the mother, the reader should be able to easily connect to at least one aspect of bravery, fear, innocence, or wisdom. This should solidify the reader’s relatability to the characters and then enhance the aspect of individual trauma experienced throughout the poem, as previously mentioned. Dudley Randall’s executive use of speakers, their diction, and symbolism continues in the fourth stanza. In attempt to keep her daughter safe, the mother tells her daughter that she may not go downtown, but she that she can go to church instead: No, baby, no, you may not go, For I fear those guns will fire. But you may go to church instead And sing in the children’s choir. (Randall 13-16)
In this stanza, the mother …show more content…
The use of the word “clawed” relates the mother’s search for her daughter to animalistic instincts as animals “claw” their way through things. Therefore, this line suggests that the mother has taken on raw, animalistic emotions due to her uncontrollable fear and unimaginable concern for her daughter. Moreover, the contrast between the first and second line in this stanza, “glass and brick” and her daughter’s small, pure white shoe is heart wrenching as it sends a painful image of destroyed purity to the …show more content…
As the poem ends with these two devastating, horrific lines, many emotions are at play in the reader’s mind as the reader identifies emotionally with the mother. First, the reader, like the mother, does not know where the daughter is, but knows that she is hurt as her shoe was found in the rubble from the explosion. While knowing that a church was bombed in Birmingham and that the daughter was in the church, but not knowing the events that followed the mother finding her daughter’s shoe, the reader should feel a frantic dread that becomes more painful when the mother calls out to her daughter. A sense of sorrow and an even greater state of trauma should also overwhelm the reader as the reader realizes that the mother sent her daughter to church to keep her safe but that her daughter was not safe in the church after all. The emotions that the mother, one can assume, felt during this time – regret, self-hate, remorse – should overwhelm the reader, as the reader identifies with the mother and the emotions she
In this stanza, the mother …show more content…
The use of the word “clawed” relates the mother’s search for her daughter to animalistic instincts as animals “claw” their way through things. Therefore, this line suggests that the mother has taken on raw, animalistic emotions due to her uncontrollable fear and unimaginable concern for her daughter. Moreover, the contrast between the first and second line in this stanza, “glass and brick” and her daughter’s small, pure white shoe is heart wrenching as it sends a painful image of destroyed purity to the …show more content…
As the poem ends with these two devastating, horrific lines, many emotions are at play in the reader’s mind as the reader identifies emotionally with the mother. First, the reader, like the mother, does not know where the daughter is, but knows that she is hurt as her shoe was found in the rubble from the explosion. While knowing that a church was bombed in Birmingham and that the daughter was in the church, but not knowing the events that followed the mother finding her daughter’s shoe, the reader should feel a frantic dread that becomes more painful when the mother calls out to her daughter. A sense of sorrow and an even greater state of trauma should also overwhelm the reader as the reader realizes that the mother sent her daughter to church to keep her safe but that her daughter was not safe in the church after all. The emotions that the mother, one can assume, felt during this time – regret, self-hate, remorse – should overwhelm the reader, as the reader identifies with the mother and the emotions she