"The Whipping" is a poem written by Robert Hayden. Robert Hayden can be an African American theoretically gifted poet, essayist and educator. He was born in Detroit, Michigan on 1913. His natural parents were Asa and Ruth Sheffey, who parted before his delivery. He was then used by a foster family, Sue Ellen Westerfield and William Hayden. Due to Hayden's unstable youth and the regular moving between his real and foster parents, "Those Winter Sundays" and "The Whipping" poems came out of these relationships. Robert Hayden used to spend most of his time reading, and unable to participate in athletics as his peers because of his severe eye-sight problems. He graduated from school in 1932 and went to Detroit City College through a scholarship. In 1940, Hayden committed Erma Morris, a music educator and concert pianist, and in the same calendar year he printed Heart-Shape in the Particles, his first e book of poems. He joined up with the University of Michigan in 1941 and acquired his master's level in 1942. He educated at Michigan University or college for quite some time, then relocated to Fisk University and continued to be there for twenty three years. In 1969, he came back to Michigan to complete his teaching career and he remained in Ann Arbor, Michigan till he passed on in 1980, at the age of 67.
Analysis
"The old woman across the way
is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
her goodness and his wrongs. "
The first two verses present the people who will be the old girl and the young man. The term "again" implies that this whipping is a common and regular thing that happened before. The speaker is not shocked by this step because he/she has recently observed a whipping of the guy before. Within the last two verses of the stanza, the woman is shouting loudly to make everyone in the neighborhood hear her as if she is hoping to give excuses for whipping the guy. She is demonstrating that she is a good female and the reason why she is beating the boy is the fact he is bad and do blunders.
"Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
pursues and sides him. "
The first two verses show in additional information the place where the whipping is happening. The area is a garden in front of the home that is planted and has plants and greenery. A sound is put into the image when the boy has been running in dread and he wildly crashes the elephant ears herb and zinnias blooms. The following two verses show the appearance of the old woman. She actually is a excess fat and huge woman; however, she can chase the little fragile boy and nook him as a beast.
"She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
boy till the stay breaks
in her hands. His tears are rainy weather
to woundlike memory:"
"She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling / boy till the stick breaks in her side" (9-10). The woman hits the child until the stay breaks in her hand. The guy is screaming and running in circles as the woman is striking him repeatedly. Then the speaker links the whipped guy to himself. The crying youngster and his tears bring back memories from the speaker's past and remind him when he used to be whipped by the parent. At the end of this stanza, the poet uses the digestive tract marks to show that the next text will be the speaker's woundlike recollections.
"My head gripped in bony vise
of legs, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
worse than blows that hateful
Words could bring, the face that I
no longer understood or cherished. . .
Well, it has ended now, it has ended,
and the youngster sobs in his room, "
In the fourth and fifth stanzas, the loudspeaker is keeping in mind an incident occurred to him in the past when he was whipped. He remembers his head placed between someone's knees and exactly how he struggled looking to free himself from that bony vise of legs but was struggling to achieve this task.
"worries / worse than blows that hateful / words could bring" (15-17). In these verses, the presenter reveals that his fear of this person is worse than the pain that hateful words could bring. "the facial skin that I / no longer knew or adored" (17-18). The speaker used to love that person but he discovered that he no longer knew and liked him/her. See your face he previously once loved had ruined love with his/her assault and inhumanity. "Well, it is over now, it is over, /and the son sobs in his room"(19-20). Hayden transitions from his earlier experience into the present time in this verse. The speaker's repeated hitting has ended and come to an end. In the present, also the boy's conquering has ended and he's crying in his room now.
"And the woman leans muttering against
a tree, worn out, purged--
avenged partly for lifelong hidings
she has already established to endure. "
The girl finally does not have any more energy for whipping. She leans against a tree literally tired. "avenged in part for lifelong hidings / she has had to keep" (23-24). The key reason why the woman is abusive to the tiny boy is the fact that she was abused in her life and a victim of beatings also.
"The Whipping" is a poem that includes six unrhymed stanzas in regards to a young boy being whipped by a vintage woman. When the speaker observed the whipping, he/she recalled an identical painful ram from his/her youth. The speaker of the poem would be the neighbor across the street of the young boy's house or may be the poet, Robert Hayden himself who witnessed the whipping and recalled an identical storage area from his child years. The setting up of the poem differs throughout the whole poem. The poem started in a area in a planted garden before a house, and then goes into the boy's room where he's crying, and then again outside under a tree. It is not clear in the poem the partnership of the old woman and the boy. It may be a mother and son marriage but I found it more proper that it is a grandmother and grandson relationship because the loudspeaker refers to the woman as an "old woman". The theme of the poem is about child abuse circuit which the narrator and the old female are damaged by and victims of it. When I first browse the poem, I thought sympathy with the boy's character and believed a lot of anger and hate to the old woman's figure. But after the completion of reading the poem, I noticed sympathy for all your character types in the poem, even the old female. I accepted that not only the young guy and the presenter were victims of abuse, but also the old female was a victim. Child abuse is a cycle that is passed down from era to technology. Many parents who misuse their children were victims of child abuse themselves. In my opinion, the routine of child misuse can be finished just by counselling and parenting education for victims of child abuse.
