Analysis Of The Ballad Of Birmingham And Remember Me
The Ballad of Birmingham is a poem written by Dudley Randall. Born in 1914 and died in 2000, Randall was an African-American poet. His most notable work is The Ballad of Birmingham that originally published in 1965. The Ballad of Birmingham is a poem that written in response to the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It consists of eight stanzas with four lines in each stanza. A young girl asks permission from her mother to march in the streets of Birmingham. The girl’s mother forbids her child to go because it can be dangerous. The girl tries to convince her mother again by saying there are other children who will come together with her. The mother still forbids her child to go, and ask her to just go to the church. The girl puts on white gloves and shoes and then leave the house, the mother lets out a relieve smile knowing that her daughter is in a safe place. Then, she hears an explosion, and runs to the church to see what happened. The mother couldn’t find her daughter in the building ruins; all she can salvage is one of her daughter's white shoes.
The second poem is Remember Me. Remember Me? is a poem written by Alice Walker. Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walke is an american novelist, short story writer, poet, political activist. Most of her works are about African-American literature. Her notable awards are the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction which she won in 1983. Remember Me? consists of nine stanzas with 1-8 lines in each stanza. The poem is written in the first person point of view. The speaker explains her appearance that is the personification of black woman whose life are darkened by the injustice of being black and woman. The speaker is being abused while working as a servant. She hopes to the human race that the better life will come in the future. As the speaker grown up and become woman, she heals from the wound from her childhood. At the end, the speaker tells what are the opressed black women hoping for, that are justice and hope.
The aim of this essay is to analyze two poems with the same main theme of racism that black people has to suffer. Even though the two poems are written by different poets and in different years, there are still some similarities between the two. This essay is written to give a critical argument and compare the two poems base on the structure and the content of the poems.
Analysis
The first poem, Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall employs word with denotation and connotation. In the fifth stanza, the poem uses the word white. The denotative meaning of white is a color. In this poem, the color white is used to symbolize the daughter’s innocence. The poem uses the color white to describe the little girl getting ready for church in order to create a sympathetic mood, through the image of a small, innocent child. The second poem is Remember Me? by Alice Walker. This poem also make use of word with denotation and connotation. In the first line of the first stanza, the poem uses the word girl. The denotative of girl is a young or relatively young woman. In this poem, the girl refers to the african girl who are being mistreated and abused by white. The first two stanzas explains the appearance of a black girl who are badly abused while working for white people.
Various poetic imageries can be found in Ballad of Birmingham. The first imagery is visual imagery. Visual imagery is used to express the terror of the mother who just lost her daughter. It can be found in the second line of the seventh stanza, “her eyes grew wet and wild.” Visual imagery is also used to display the innocence and vulnerability of the daughter. It can be found in the third line of the fifth stanza, “and drawn white gloves on her small brown hands.” The next imagery that is used in this poem is kinestethic imagery. Kinestethic imagery is used to express panic of the mother who tries to find her daughter after the explosion. It can be found in the first line of the eighth stanza, “she clawed through bits of glass and brick.”
The only poetic imagery that are used in Remember Me? is visual imagery. The poem uses visual imagery in almost part of the poem. In the first two stanzas, the poem uses visual imagery to portray the apperance of all young african women in 1990s. The poem portrays them as girls with rotted teeth, wounded eyes, and melted ears. In the fourth stanza, the poem uses visual imagery to portray the black women who grow up to be women who show able to optimism and begin accepting themselves as black women. They grow up with black skin, repaired teeth, and healed the wound.
Some figurative languages can found in Ballad of Birmingham. The first figurative language is alliteration. The poem uses alliteration by repeating the /f/ sound in the second line of the fourth stanza, “for I fear those guns will fire.” The poem also uses alliteration in the second line of the seventh stanza by repeating the /w/ sound, “her eyes grew wet and wild.” This poem also uses symbolism. In Ballad of Birmingham, the church as mentioned in the third line of the fourth stanza is used as the symbol of safety and religion.
Remember Me? also uses some figurative languages. Personification is the first figurative language that can be found in the poem. The poem uses the girl as a personification of all black women in 1990s. Symbolism can also be found in the poem. In the first two stanzas, the poem describes the girl as someone with rotted teeth, wounded eyes, and melted ears. These are used to symbolize the common apperance of young black women in 1990s. The poem also uses metaphor in the second line of the seventh stanza, “offering two flowers.” The flowers are used as the metaphor of justice and hope that can’t be separated from each other.
The main theme of The Ballad of Birmingham is about racism, however there are also some other themes that are being discussed in this poem. The Ballad of Birmingham portrays a daughter who would rather march in a protest against racism or sing choir in a church than go out to play as any other children. The innocence of the daughter makes her doesn’t understand the danger of the freedom march. When her mother denies her request to go to the march, the daughter dresses in white, a common symbol for innocence and purity. The poem asserts the daughter's innocence to make the ultimate tragedy in the poem all the more wounding.
This poem also discusses about the live of African-Americans in the Jim Crow laws era, were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. The result of this laws were that African Americans were banned from many businesses, schools, and even parts of public transport. The Ballad of Birmingham is about a young African American girl asks her mother to be allowed to join the marches that blew out in protest of the Jim Crow laws. The mother of the young girl who afraid of the danger of the marches that might hurt her daughter refuses the request, but the daughter is still not free from the harm of racism.
The Ballad of Birmingham also includes violence as a part of the poem. The mother of the daughter in the poem who wants to join the free march along with her friends, refuses her daughter’s request because the police might use violence against the protesters. That possibility is too much for the mother that she asks her daughter to sing in the church choir instead of join in the march. In the end, even in a sacred place like a church can’t protect the lives of the black people like the daughter in the poem.
Remember Me? also uses the issue of racism as the major theme. It discusses about the injustice that black women in the United States have to bear in their daily life. The first two stanzas tell the common live of young African girls, that they are being treated poorly to the point it wounded their body. Most of young African girls at that generation works as servants to white families.
Hope is also being discusses in the poem. The rest of the stanzas after the first two stanzas discusses about the girl who grow up with full of optimism and hope. The girl grow up and become a woman with black skin, healed the wound from her body. This shows that even though she lived a pitiful live as a black girl, there is still hope that the wound from the past can be healed and justice can be served if people are willing to listen to the voice from the opressed community.
Conclusion
In conclusion, both of the poems has similarities and differences in some aspects. The similarities between the two poems is that both uses the same major theme, that is about black people who suffer from the harm of racism. The Ballad of Birmingham and Remember Me? also use black women’s perspective to convey the kind of racism they suffer from white people. The Ballad of Birmingham portrays how black people aren't safe from racism, even in a sacred place such as a church. The poem also highlights the struggle of black people to fight unfair laws and move toward equality. And the second poem, Remember Me? by Alice Walker portrays how black people are being treated in the United States. In the poem, black people often work as servants to white families and are physically abused by them, but the wounds they get from the past help them grow to be wonderful being.
Even though the poems have some similarities, there are also some things that differ the two poems. The Ballad of Birmingham deals with the topic of black people who suffers from the harm of racism in the free marches. The poem shows an irony that even in a sacred place like a church can’t keep black people from racism. The Ballad of Birmingham also ends the poem in a devastating way. The mother lost her daughter in a church because of an explosion in a church. While Remember Me? begins with full of sadness and agony of black women, but the poem ends in a optimistic way. Remember Me? ends with full of hope that someday hope and justice can be served.
