The Whipping
By Robert Hayden
The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.
Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.
She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:
My head gripped in bony vise
of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful
Words could bring, the face that I
no longer knew or loved . .
.Well, it is over now, it is over,
and the boy sobs in his room,
And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, exhausted, purged--
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
she has had to bear.
The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs.
Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and corners him.
She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stick breaks
in her hand. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memories:
My head gripped in bony vise
of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful
Words could bring, the face that I
no longer knew or loved . .
.Well, it is over now, it is over,
and the boy sobs in his room,
And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, exhausted, purged--
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
she has had to bear.
QUESTIONS
1. What scene is the speaker observing? What experience does it remind him of?
2. What point does the speaker stop describing the experience he is remembering? At what point does he switch back again to the present? (Literary Element: Point of View).
3. What images help the reader to see and hear what is happening in each scene? (Literary Element: Imagery)
4. What is the old woman's explanation for whipping the boy? What is the explanation that the author gives?
5. What metaphor does Hayden use to to describe how the boy's tear affect his own memory?
6. In line 19, the speaker says, "Well, it is over now, it is over." Do you agree?
7. What message do you think the poem conveys about the causes and effects of violence?
8. What phrase would you select as the most significant in the poem? Why? Could this phrase be switch to the title? How so?
9. If you could interview the poet, what would ask him about the poem and about his reasons for writing it? Write out three questions.
1. What scene is the speaker observing? What experience does it remind him of?
2. What point does the speaker stop describing the experience he is remembering? At what point does he switch back again to the present? (Literary Element: Point of View).
3. What images help the reader to see and hear what is happening in each scene? (Literary Element: Imagery)
4. What is the old woman's explanation for whipping the boy? What is the explanation that the author gives?
5. What metaphor does Hayden use to to describe how the boy's tear affect his own memory?
6. In line 19, the speaker says, "Well, it is over now, it is over." Do you agree?
7. What message do you think the poem conveys about the causes and effects of violence?
8. What phrase would you select as the most significant in the poem? Why? Could this phrase be switch to the title? How so?
9. If you could interview the poet, what would ask him about the poem and about his reasons for writing it? Write out three questions.
Theme
The theme demonstrates the cycle of violence in child abuse
Literary elements
Point of View -- the perspective this poem switches through the poem. At first the narrator describe the scene his is viewing -- a boy being beaten by his mother. Then in the fourth stanza the perspective switches to the narrator's memories of being beaten by a loved one. The perspective switches back in the fifth stanza. The switch shows us the narrator understands that he understands what the boy is going through, but it also may show that he knows what the mother is going through as well. The cycle of violence. She is "avenged in part for lifelong hidings she has had to bear."
Alliteration -- Alliteration, the repeating of a consonant sound, appears in the third stanza with the repeating of the sssssss sound. That is the sound of the stick swishing in the air each time the mother strikes the boy. The author purposely does this so the reader can auditorily "see" the scene and show how many times the boy is being hit. The shows badly the abuse haunts the mother.
Imagery -- Imagery paints a picture and the author paints a picture of violence and desperation from the boy crashing through the flowers to the woman striking the boy so hard the stick break. We also see the narrator recalling his abuse, curled in a ball and protecting himself -- literally and metaphorically. We see the large woman chasing the small boy and the woman out of breath after the exhausting beating. The imagery shows the tireless cycle of violence -- the beating and protecting one's self over and over.
Conflict -- Conflict is the struggle between people, people and nature, or within a person. We see the conflicted by the boy and the woman during the beating, but what is more powerful is the struggle within the narrator, who is reminded on his abuse, and the woman who has been abused as a child and continued the cycle of abuse to purge herself of those abusive feeling. The woman know that abuse is wrong, but cannot stop the cycle of abuse within herself.