Little boy

Literature
Poetry

The poem “Little boy crying”, which was written by Mervyn Morris, talks about a young boy who is being punished by his father for playing in the rain. The child sees his dad asan ogre, this is a relationship made by the author between reality and fables and child stories. This poem transmits to the receptor two main themes, the child-adult relationship and childhoodstories and imagination. The second one refers to how stories interfere in children’s concept of life and reality. In this poem we can find not only an emotional tone, but also reflective and naïve. This isbecause it talks about the feeling of the boy towards his father and it finishes with a reflection. The vocabulary, which is simple, is related to fables and children stories. All this is narrated inthird person.
In the poem, Mervyn Morris not only uses literary devices like alliterations and metaphors, but also uses typical language from fables and children tales like vocabulary and phrasesfrom different stories. In the first stanza, the author says, that the child was having a good time playing at the rain, when he started shouting and his eyes filled with tears because his father hadpunished him. This is said in a metaphor because he is not saying this directly, but using other words. The author also used an alliteration, “the quick slap struck”, to highlight the phrase inaddition to give rhythm to the poem. In the second stanza he used many metaphors to describe the father. He used fable characters, in this case an ogre, and different parts from different stories, like when“Chopping clean the tree he’s scrambling down” it makes reference to the fairy tale “Jack and the beanstalk”. The author is telling how the child sees his father when he is punished by him; heexaggerates the anger of his father as he sees him as an ogre who is trying to hurt him. The ogre, in fables, generally attacks people, so the author made reference to that. The third stanza shares the...