Amber essay Animalistic whippings

Animalistic Whippings

In “The Whipping” Robert Hayden uses animal imagery to depict the inhuman and degrading act of violence upon a young child, and successfully employs a diction of repetition to bring about the memory of another act of violence against the speaker of the poem.
It’s likely this is a broken home because of the first line: “The old woman across the way is whipping the boy again” (Hayden 1.2). It isn’t common to have an old woman and a young boy living together. Perhaps the woman is a grandmother, or great aunt.
Memory stimulation, or the repetition of the violent act, is set up in the first line: “Across the way” (Hayden 1) shows that this may also be that the memories are both across the way (the street) and back in the time of the speakers memory. Animal imagery adds to the readers stimulation in this binary style poem.
In the second stanza, Hayden uses imagery showing behavior much like that of the animal kingdom. The boy is in the undignified trap, “cornered” (Hayden 8) like an animal. The “animal ears” (Hayden 5) and the “zinnias” (Hayden 6) are symbolic of a jungle setting, a place often associated with savagery. The pleading of the boy when he is cornered causes him to respond with a “shrilly” (Hayden 9) tone, like the shrieks of a trapped animal. The melancholy tears bring about “woundlike memories”
(Hayden 12)for the young boy as well as the speaker.

The speaker is also trapped, but in a different way: “My head gripped in bony vise of knees” (Hayden 13,14) instead of the boy’s head gripped in a bony vise. This demonstrates the restimulation of abusive memories. The severity of the whipping is shown through diction as the word “blows” (Hayden 15,16) is not used once, but twice. The fear of being trapped with no possible escape is doubly intensified. As the poem makes a switch from the event of the beating and the memories of the speaker it is good that the face of the abuser is something that is in the distant past. A face that is no longer “loved” (Hayden 18). The speaker say’s “it’s over” (Hayden 19) twice. Over for the boy and now over for him as well. The boy sobbing in the room is the actual event but also a symbol of the youthful abuse of the speaker.
In the final stanza comes another important and heartbreaking element to life in this animal kingdom: the woman “leans muttering against a tree, exhausted, purged-” (Hayden 22) and she thinks about the memories of her past. Through a lifetime of abuse the cycle continues to corner the “lifelong hidings” (Hayden 23) of vicious attacks. Finally the last word of this poem echoes the animal theme. With “She has had to bear,” (Hayden 24) the poem ends with the echo of one of the fiercest animals, reminding us unfortunately of the violent nature in all of us.
The animal imagery used in this powerful poem paints a picture of the harshness of violence upon an innocent child. “The Whipping” leaves scars on the abuser, the neighbor, and importantly, the child. The “Stick breaking” (Hayden 10) heartache felt throughout the poem is a real testament to the effects of abuse. Robert Hayden demonstrates that It’s the history of untrained, uneducated animals forming to the society and culture in which we live. The effects of the wild struggle to break free from the cycle, exhausting child abuse circles around us every day. The abused often end up as abusers as the “old woman across the way” (Hayden 1) has. The memories of the prey style attacks on children leave permanent damage and it will never truly be “over” (Hayden 19).