Tuesday, May 24, 2011

poem analysis

Children in the darkness


(1) Point of View
The point of view is from a third persons perspective. He is adopting a point of view where he who is an outsider is showing his feelings and pity for the innocent children and hence tries to show the contrast between the way children are living there and the right way children should live to evoke feelings in the readers to know that war is bad.

(2) Situation and Setting
The situation here is that a military conflict between the communist forces and anti-communist forces in Vietnam at this point in time. This cause the country to be in a very chaotic and devastating state with the children lives ruined by poverty and war plunging them into the darkness.

(3) Language/Diction
The language involves some rhyming. He also use metaphors to give a very negative and sad feelings about war and require a level of understanding and interpretation.

(4) Personal Response
I feel sad for the children in the war as they are innocent and yet have to go through the pains of war due to some childish actions of the adults are their childish decision to solve conflict by fighting instead of negotiating. Hence their childhoods have been robbed and they must suffer unlike other children in other parts of the world who enjoys peace and good education and a good standard of living. This feeling in me was evoked due to the language of the poet who was successful in doing so. Hence this is a good poem.

Background of the poem

Children in the darkness

In my opinion, the poet was most likely a soldier in the Vietnam War and he pitied the children there as their lives are destroyed by war and corruption. When he was fighting in the war, he felt that these innocent children should be sitting in classrooms and receiving proper education enjoying a peaceful childhood instead of suffering by fighting the war and experiencing torment and sadness. He feels angered because he thinks that children should not live such a meaningful and suffering life and were treated unfairly due to the war. Hence he wrote this poem to pour out his grievances and used children in the darkness as the title to give us a clue on the contenet.

References
http://keyserzone.blogspot.com/2010/05/poetry-analysis-children-in-darkness.html