Persona and Tone in "Ballad Essay

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"O, here's the shoe my baby wore,

But, baby, where are you?" (25-8)

These images become more powerful when expressed through the mother's eyes.

The tone of this poem is important because it commands attention and respect without screaming and demanding righteousness. The daughter represents the ideals behind the civil rights movement and the poem's lullaby-like quality forces readers to actually listen to what the poet is saying. For example, we are forewarned of danger when we read:

"No, baby, no, you may not go,

For the dogs are fierce and wild,

And clubs and hoses, guns and jails

Aren't good for a little child" (5-8).

Here the mother realizes the danger involved and the poet knows about the danger of a racism that is passive aggressive.

"Ballad of Birmingham," captures a bit more than history when it looks into the painful experience of a mother who tried to do the right thing.

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The poem illustrates how we can never predict life or guess at any outcomes. Randall chooses the perspective of the mother to reveal a more personal pain associated with the bombing. Women did lose their children and this is something people watching television or reading history books might not consider. The images of the mother and daughter become tangible and attach themselves to the event. The tone of the poem is one of peacefulness despite events. Things may not always go our way even when we do the right thing but we go one doing the right thing anyway because it is the only human thing to do.

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