analysis

[funkychickmel]

Can any one out there plz analyse this poem for me? i need as much detail as possible and any links to other helpful sites would be helpful thanks.:yawnb:

Son Of Mine

My son, your troubled eyes search mine,
Puzzled and hurt by colour line.
Your black skin soft as velvet shine;
What can i tell you, son of mine?

I could tell you of heartbreak, hatred blind,
I could tell you of crimes that shame mankind,
Of brutal wrong and deeds malign,
Of rape and murder, son of mine;

But I'll tell instead of brave and fine
When lives of black and white entwine,
And men in brotherhood combine-
This would I tell, you son of mine.

By Kath Walker


thanks heaps

[Redzeppelin]

Can any one out there plz analyse this poem for me? i need as much detail as possible and any links to other helpful sites would be helpful thanks.:yawnb:

Son Of Mine

My son, your troubled eyes search mine,
Puzzled and hurt by colour line.
Your black skin soft as velvet shine;
What can i tell you, son of mine?

I could tell you of heartbreak, hatred blind,
I could tell you of crimes that shame mankind,
Of brutal wrong and deeds malign,
Of rape and murder, son of mine;

But I'll tell instead of brave and fine
When lives of black and white entwine,
And men in brotherhood combine-
This would I tell, you son of mine.

By Kath Walker


thanks heaps

Hi funky - generally, most posters on this site resist doing what sounds like someone's assignment/homework for them. We're happy to discuss with you what YOU think the poem means, but analyze it for you? That would be a disservice. The poem is clearly about race and issues pertaining to it - what did YOU get out of the poem?

[Turk]

I don't know a lot about English poetry but this seems quite cliche and ordinary. And i don't think there's anything new with your style too; i mean words you've used. There's no interesting or new image as i can see. But anyway i am not so good about English poetry and i may be wrong. That's just what i see with my limited knowledge of English.

[funkychickmel]

well when i first read this poem i thought it was about a white women trying to decide what to tell her black son about his background and his people, but on further research i discovered that the mother, father (who left) and son are all black.

[Redzeppelin]

well when i first read this poem i thought it was about a white women trying to decide what to tell her black son about his background and his people, but on further research i discovered that the mother, father (who left) and son are all black.

Right - dad is passing onto son the reality of being black in a racial society. A good companion poem to this is Langston Hughes' "Mother to Son" (though Hughes' leans less on racism than on the difficulty of life in general).


"Son of Mine" is very direct and literal - it does little of the figurative language that often makes poems difficult to penetrate. If you rewrote the lines without the extra capitals that begin each line and obeyed the punctuation, you would find a fairly direct set of sentences where dad says "I could tell you how things are (bad), but I'll tell you how I wish things could be (better)."

[Aiculík]

Do you need interpretation (literary) or analysis (linguistic)?

If you need linguistic analysis, you may look at:
rhyme and rhytm
syntax - for example, there is inverted word order, repetition of words and structures
figures - similes, metaphors, epitetons
vocabulary - register etc.


Of course, enumeration of what is used in the poem is not enough. Think how it all help to form the "meaning" of the poem - does the vocabulary help to build the atmosphere of the poem? is there any reason the author used repetition? etc.

[funkychickmel]

i am doing an analysis and have found the following techniques:
simile, rhyme, repitition and imagery. can u c any others? thanks heaps.