A Biographical Approach to the Poem The Whipping by Robert Hayden Essay

Robert Hayden is angiotensin-converting enzyme of the best-known American poets of his time. However, he is too one of the most underrated poets of solely time, arguably not as much accolades as other poets of the kindred era. His poems exude admirable sincerity and tremendous grasp of poetic devices. His ravishing poem The Whipping is regarded as one of his finest flow. A biographical set about to the poem would reveal to us that Hayden trans put to works his bitter memories to a sumptuous work of art. The poem is basically about a woman whipping a boy, for some reason that is not explicitly stated in the poem.The game report is whipping the boy again tells us that violent locomote is being carried on regularly. The reader immediately would assume that the woman is the contract of the boy, regardless if the woman is the boys biological or cling to parent. The picture that Hayden had painted is vividly painful. The lines she strikes and strikes the shrilly circling / boy till the get to breaks suggests the level of anger of the woman and the fear and pain of the boy. The woman halt whipping the boy only when the stick was already broken.Halfway finished the poem, the author shifts from third to first somebody words could bring the feel that I / no longer knew or loved Those first person lines suggest to the readers that the speaking persona could have undergone the same kind of treatment. The line well, it is over now, it is over is a potent hint that the narrator is recalling his past. He is able to forgive the one that whipped him. However, he is unable to shake strike the memories of being whipped as a boy. A peek to Haydens living is likely to lead us to clues that had led him to conceive this poem.Hayden was born and grew up in a Detroit ghetto which the people there called Paradise Valley. During that time, personnel, in the form of corporal punishment, was not uncommon. Hayden also had an irregular family life as a child. His biologica l parents were separated even before his birth. A couple who also exhibited a volatile relationship took him in. As a child, Hayden had witnessed domestic violence from both his biological and foster parents (Greasely 251-252).Hayden had shown us admirable honesty by means of his poem The Whipping. Corporal punishment is not much talked about by adults, probably because they are now currently the ones guilty of whipping their children. Hayden had dual-lane his memories to us to convey a message that would be vital for whatever community. He is suggesting to us that corporal punishment is more likely to contribute childhood trauma than discipline. Moreover, he is also arguing that violence to a child is injustice. Parents blaming their child for their lifelong hidings are the primary reason wherefore this vicious cycle of violence is still ongoing.