Tiny Feet by Gabriela Mistral
Poetry was always the way to express yourself, to scream aloud about things that worry an author. So does Gabriela Mistral in the poem “Tiny Feet”. The topic of poverty is very familiar to her – “she was not from a moneyed elite background, but from an impoverished provincial middle-class family” (Miller, 2005). That influenced her poetry in a whole, as she tries to warn others about the terrible state of poverty.
The whole form of the poem is interesting. It consists of six stanzas; each stanza contains four lines. They all share the same scheme – three full lines, and the fourth one is short, just a couple of words. This makes a special effect – breaking of a rhythm of the stanza, making the last word more prominent; it stands out from other lines, the voice in the head of a reader almost cries it. This method provides the last line of each stanza with more emphatic power; underlines the images created by three preceding lines with despair and sadness: “Little feet of children; blue with cold. How can they see you and not cover you, my God!” (Mistral, 1-4). The underlined words are the final line – it makes little climax at the end of every stanza.
The rhyming is not constant; it may vary from stanza to stanza. In the first one, last word of second line (cold) rhymes with the last word of the fourth line (God). Those are the end rhymes. In addition, in the third line the word “you” is used twice – in the middle of the line and in the end – giving the internal rhyme. In the second stanza there in no obvious rhyming, though the pace of the poem is still present, again, with the help of final line.
In the third stanza, the same situation is observed. The fourth one is more optimistic – final “sole” of the second line rhymes with the third’s “more”. The two final stanzas share the situation: there is no obvious rhyme.
The punctuation is very important in this poem. It breaks the up-going intonation with a little climax, letting the reader to stop for a moment and see the poem’s image more clearly: “The spikenard raises more/ fragrant. / be, since you march” (Mistral, 15-17).
The poem is free verse, though it is consistent in the overall structure of the stanzas.
The main idea of this poem is to show the ignorance of the children’s poverty. The whole atmosphere of the poem is sad in depressing. From the first stanza, author sets the dramatic tone.
In the first stanza, she paints initial picture of a child’s bare feet, which are so cold that they turned blue: “Little feet of children/ blue with cold” (Mistral, 1-2). This image of little feet suffering is showed through entire poem. Author uses strong epithets, to bring unpleasant thruth of poor life even closer to reader’s eyes. Those epithets are: “wounded feet”; little bleeding sole” (Mistral, 1945).
The main problem of the poem is peoples’ ignorance, who do not even stop to have a look and give a hand to poor child. This issue is actual in nowadays: modern people are way too busy to help others in need, who they might meet on the streets of their city. That is why so many different social experiment take place on the streets – they only prove Mistral’s argument of human ignorance. This problem is of social character. In addition, author was religious woman, she even cries to the God, in despair (Mistral, 1).
There are some repetitions. Like initial “little” in the first and fifth lines. The full first line repeats itself in the first line of last stanza – giving the poem framing touch. The word feet repeats some times as well, being the main image of the poem.
There are some vivid comparisons. One of them is “little feet of children, two tiny suffering jewels” (Mistral, 21-22). Author compares feet to shiny stones – jewels, which are very easy to notice. Thus providing another evidence of the human ignorance. Moreover, that in the source of child’s pain and suffering – not the poverty and hurt feet, but the fact that it goes unnoticed, without anyone caring to help. Still, author describes child as “heroic” (Mistral, 19), for the endurance, that it shows. The bare and hurt feet becomes a symbol of child’s sufferings in an unfair and ignorant world.
Works cited
Miller, Nicola. “Recasting the role of the Intellectual: Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral”. Feminist Review, 79, 2005. pp. 134-149.
Mistral, Gabriela. ”Tiny feet”. 1945. Web. Retrieved 1 September, 2016 from:
<https://allpoetry.com/Tiny-Feet>
