Nothing strikes the human chord of emotional impact as poetic expressions based on historical events. Straightaway, the reader realizes the innocence of a child is coupled with a parental attempt to veil the horror of murderous and hateful events occurring in their community. The writer of the poem, Ballad of Birmingham, by Dudley Randall uses a theme of irony as a core device in the piece. The most provocative words integrate into gaining the significance of the content. To summarize, the poem is a conversation between a mother – presumably and obviously black Americans – and her child, whereby the child wants to go to the protest march for Civil Rights. The mother repeatedly denies her child permission to go, reiterating the dangerous nature of one so young participating in the march. Finally, the mother appeases the child’s desire to join the protest march by allowing her daughter to go to the church-house. Consequently, the mother gets her little brown-skinned girl all dressed up in her Sunday-school- best attire. Looking pretty in these clothes, smelling sweetly of roses, the mother feels triumphant that her daughter will be safe. The betrayal an irony comes in when the mother hears the explosion in their small town of Birmingham, and rushes out to see what has happened. The ultimate irony is that the church had been bombed by terrorists, killing little girls as they attended service. This essay is a literary analysis of Dudley Randall’s poem.
An examination of some of the stanzas help to better grasp the literary device he uses. The frequent use of the word ‘mother’ shows the close relationship, and most tender moments that exists in a family. Also reminiscent, is the subconscious idea of the Holy Mary as mother of God imagery which possibly suggests an appropriate part of Randall’s device. In addition to the word usage of ‘mother’ the poet uses the word ‘child’ in a way to suggest that the situation of violence and segregation in the Deep South, during the 1960s era of Civil Rights in America, was very familiar to all black family members. So, younger children would have been either directly or indirectly aware of any type of protest marching going on. Normally, parents are able to shield their children from disturbing events as portrayed, but begins to use irony in the first stanza that hints the black mother’s child does not have the luxury of total innocence, and is so determined to protest for the greater good of family and community. Thus, Dudley Randall’s poem “Ballad of Birmingham” describes the irony of the dire seriousness and danger of the situation, by the opening conversation between mother and child:
“Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?” (1-4)
The irony is presented straightaway, in the factor that young children should be playing, and not having their young minds’ troubled by larger adult issues involving death threats, danger, and violence in the neighborhoods in which they live. Dudley Randall uses the poem to deliver a message, or even a sermon in a lose sense of the word, especially since the poem later mentions church and the goodness of safety it is supposed to represent. If you really think about it, this poem is almost a haunting reminder of the recent events of the church murders in South Carolina making worldwide headlines. The situation is radically provocative in that the child is asking to participate in the march.
The mother is afraid and protective of her child, and repeats a denial of her daughter to go to the march. To clarify the culture of African-Americans’ time frame and historical reference, Randall notes that “For the dogs are fierce and wild, / And clubs and hoses, guns and jail” are not “good for a little child” (“Ballad of Birmingham”). The mother explicitly explains why she is concerned for her baby’s safety, clearly telling the child about canines attacking and warning of the threat of being beat with clubs, and being sprayed with fire hoses as weapons. These words and phrases about the dogs and hoses, places the scene in a historical setting, thus cementing his poetry in a particular moment. Part of the writer’s tool and device will forever give the reader a literal context in which to read the poem, no matter what future era it is confronted. Yet one thing that seems a bit off-kilter or strange, is that the mother does not accompany her child to the church service.
Is this part of the situational imagery the poet uses? Perhaps, it is. The mother proceeds to emphasize to her little girl that she may participate in attendance of the church choir singing, so Randall writes “But you may go to church instead / And sing in the children’s choir” (“Ballad of Birmingham”). At this point, the reader has a sense of expectation that the mother will lead the child to church, and get dressed, so that they both may attend. Apparently, Randall uses a dramatic escalation to his ironic theme, by not showing the mother to go to church with her daughter, as she obviously goes alone – or at least, with someone else other than the mother. This most unusual behavior is quite out of character for a black family to let children go to church by themselves. In fact it most probably has never happened, in terms of the non-fictional world of real life. Nevertheless, the poet uses the imagery of violent protest marching and violence in the shadow of the characters’ setting and immediate background, to demonstrate the ‘holy and sacred’ as contrasted from the ‘evil and profane’ hatred of bigotry and color prejudice.
The effect of the use of this contrasting imagery is profound and devastating. In the stanza following the mother’s permission for the daughter to go to church instead, where it is supposedly safe, Randall writes the following:
“She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.
The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
The mother’s joyful expectation of sending her daughter to church, which is deemed to be the safest spot, turns out to be an ominous moment in the poem. The mother had satisfaction and peace to know that church truly was a sacred, untouchable place from the violence and danger of the Civil Rights protest marching. The poet uses the device to confirm the theme of irony, when it is told the reader that the mother would smile for the last time. This signified the never-ending grief that the mother would carry in her heart throughout the rest of her life because of the demise of her child.
The imagery is amazingly striking with the use of the color white, as being pristine, sacred, and ritually symbolic of godliness and purity. To contrast and solidify the imagery in the reader’s mind, Randall uses the brownness of the little child’s hands, and the ‘night-dark’ of her hair to further highlight the white shoes (undoubtedly patent leather), and sweet-smelling hands inside ‘white’ gloves. Therefore, this is the point in which the poem begins to take on another tone. The first couple of stanzas seemed relatively innocent. But Randall gives a hint of the horror of what is to come by using the symbolism of white attire, and the mother’s loss of happiness by never smiling again in connection of what is to happen with this child.
Works Cited
“Glossary Terms.” Poetryfoundation.org Poetry Foundation – Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, n.d. Web. 14 July 2015.
“Poems.” Ballad of Birmingham, [Class Handout]. 14 July 2015.
