Eavan Boland - Child Of Our Time Flashcards
Poem written in response to
1974 Dublin bombings where 33 civilians died including a baby
Lullaby to send child to final sleep - soothing
Addressing baby directly
Baby can teach society
This paradox represents the irrationality of the murder
Yesterday I knew no lullaby but you have taught me overnight to order this song
Rhythm and discord are opposites
Reason she wrote the poem - to give peace, reassurance, console
Rhythm from the discord of your murder
“We” - our collective responsibility to care for children everywhere
Extended metaphor of baby ironically teaching them
We who should have known how to instruct
Imagery of childhood and innocence make situation more real
Language is central to the conflict and fixing it
She highlights that language is the issue and the solution
Rhythms for your sleep, names for the animals you took to be, takes to distract
It’s a tragic irony that the society who should have taught the child must now learn from its death
And living, learn, must learn from you, dead
Broken images - images of each other and themselves, their values and beliefs that define who they are
Fixing themselves
What is needed is language
Rebuilding society with the child at the centre
Child’s death is the reason for the reform, sad it took if that far for something to happen
Broken images rebuild themselves around your limbs
Violence and language
Political discourse that goes nowhere
Words have consequences
Idle talk has cost
Strong image
No blaming anyone in particular just society and hatred
Our times have robbed your cradle
The world that the baby sleeps in has been awoken by its death
Paradox
Poet ends on a note of optimism as the child is at rest
Final sleep is death
Sleep in a world your final sleep has woken
Tone
Guilt Sorrow Despair Outrage Sombre Heartbreaking Tenderness
Themes
War and violence
Innocence
Language
