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

A Biographical Approach to the rime The Whipping by Robert Hayden EssayRobert Hayden is one of the best-known American poets of his time. However, he is also one of the most underrated poets of all time, arguably not as much accolades as other poets of the same era. His metrical compositions exude estimable sincerity and tremendous grasp of poetic devices. His beautiful metrical composition The Whipping is regarded as one of his finest work. A biographical approach to the poem would reveal to us that Hayden transforms his bitter memories to a sumptuous work of art. The poem is basically about a woman whipping a son, for some movement that is not explicitly stated in the poem.The second line is whipping the boy again tells us that violent passage is being carried on regularly. The reader immediately would assume that the woman is the mother of the boy, regardless if the woman is the boys biological or foster parent. The picture that Hayden had painted is vividly painful. T he lines she strikes and strikes the shrilly circling / boy work the stick breaks counsels the level of anger of the woman and the fear and pain of the boy. The woman stopped whipping the boy only when the stick was already broken.Halfway through the poem, the author shifts from third to first person lyric could bring the face 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 buckram hint that the narrator is recalling his past. He is able to forgive the one that whipped him. However, he is unable to shake saturnine the memories of being whipped as a boy. A peek to Haydens biography 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, violence, in the form of corporal punishment, was not uncommon. Hay den also had an irregular family life as a child. His biological parents were illogical 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 through his poem The Whipping. Corporal punishment is not much talked about by adults, probably because they are now soon the ones guilty of whipping their children. Hayden had shared his memories to us to convey a message that would be vital for whatsoever community. He is suggesting to us that corporal punishment is more likely to generate 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 why this vicious cycle of violence is still ongoing.