Little Boy Crying by Mervyn Morris —

Analysis

Mervyn Morris’ ‘Little Boy Crying’ is a controversial poem in many ways. The basic idea is
that an upset child has been hit by his father by way of discipline, but we are presented with
both the parent and the child’s perspectives of this ambiguous situation. Is physical
punishment an important part of objective and formative discipline, or is it an unnecessarily
cruel and extreme behaviour? Your opinion on this matter may differ, depending on your
own cultural context and the way in which you were yourself raised. To make matters even
more difficult, Morris deliberately obscures the figures in the poem: we do not know if he
was the child or the parent in this situation, as he was 81 years old at the time of writing. So
he may have been looking back on himself as a child, or as a parent — alternatively, it may
just be a hypothetical scenario that never happened to him personally. Regardless, the poem
sheds a lot of light on parent-child relationships and explores a complex and nuanced way in
which maturity and discipline are interconnected.

STORY / SUMMARY
Stanza 1: The father has hit a three-year-old child, and the boy is crying. The boy looks for
‘guilt’ or ‘sorrow’ in the father.

Stanza 2: The child views the parent as an ‘ogre’ because of his size and cruelty. The boy is
perhaps scared of the father. The boy hates the father at this point, because he can’t
understand why the father slapped him, and he can’t understand why the father feels no
remorse. The boy imagines getting revenge.

Stanza 3: The boy is too young to understand that he can also hurt his father, the father
actually is pretending to feel nothing but on the inside he feels bad. He wants to play with the
boy and make him happy, but he dares not because if he does that, the boy won’t learn a
lesson.
Stanza 4: The poem ends with a single line, about how we should take the rain seriously.
Perhaps this is a metaphor suggesting that things we don’t like sometimes are important and
good for us. The father wants to play with the boy, but he needs him to take the discipline
seriously.

SPEAKER / VOICE
The speaker is talking straight to the boy (the addressee), about his father — we assume the
speaker is the poet himself. We can see both sides, because the story is told from a removed
point of view. The father could be a good parent who feels the need to teach his child
important rules and boundaries, or he could be a bad parent who lost his temper. Equally, the
boy also has a good and bad side — he could be an innocent child who has been hurt by his
father’s outburst, or he could be a spoilt child who is throwing a tantrum: there is a subtle
exploration of parent-child relationships.

ATTITUDES
Empathy is important in any argumentative situation — the lack of communication and
respect between the parent and child has resulted in the need for physical punishment. If the
father had better control his child through understanding his position (empathy), then he may
have avoided having to use extreme punishment. Equally, if the boy was able to respect the
rules and boundaries he had been given, it would also not have happened. It is arguable that
both parties are partially responsible for what happened, but alternatively you could argue
that the parent as a mature adult should always take the moral high ground and never stoop to
hitting as a form of punishment, no matter how extreme the behaviour of the child.

Parenting is a process of trial and error — perhaps the speaker is trying to help us
understand that parents aren’t perfect, and they can make mistakes or go too far with their
discipline sometimes. The parent says that the boy ‘cannot understand, not yet, /the hurt’ that
he can inflict on his father — this demonstrates that children have power too over their
parents, the extreme love that parents feel for them can be manipulated through behaviour
such as crying and throwing tantrums.

Discipline is important for children, as they need to learn lessons about life — the father
thinks that physical discipline is acceptable as a punishment for bad behaviour — this is not
necessarily a good idea because the punishment could traumatise the child, it could impact
his future relationship with his father, the father is much stronger than the child physically
and so his perception of physical punishment may be different from the child’s experience of
it. Nevertheless, we do not know the incident which caused the punishment, it may have been
something very dangerous or extreme that required an extreme form of discipline. The final
line ‘You must not make a plaything of the rain.’ stands out on its own as a final comment on
the matter, presenting the opinion, at least from the poet’s point of view, that serious
discipline was needed in this case.

The boy is sad, angry and confused but he is also learning — through difficulty and
hardship, we are able to learn and grow. The father takes no pleasure in hitting the boy, in
fact he longs to ‘lift’ the boy and ‘curb [his] sadness’, but he realises that comforting the boy
when he has done something wrong will never encourage him to learn the proper behaviour.
Children need to have their moral frameworks shaped and developed, and for this they need a
balance of positive and negative experiences.

LANGUAGE FEATURES

Continuous verbs — ‘mouth contorting’, ‘chopping’, ‘clambering’, ‘swimming’, ‘splashing’

— the description of the boy uses a range of continuous verbs, implying he is full of energy
and always on the move. It creates the impression of the boy as perhaps difficult to control
and quite independent.

Monosyllabic lexis / Onomatopoeia — ‘quick slap struck’ — the heavy, simple words of
the final line in the first stanza evoke the feeling of the punishment given. The adjective
‘quick’ implies that the physical pain of the discipline was swift and not intended to hurt
much or last a long time, stressing the fact that, in Morris’ view, corporal punishment is
acceptable so long as it is not delivered out of stress or anger and is more pragmatic or
practical.

Fairy-tale allegory — The poem draws parallels between the situation with the boy and the
father, and jack and the beanstalk with nouns such as ‘ogre’. Fairy tales contain monstrous
figures that are sometimes intimidating or frightening, but also didactic — they teach children
important moral lessons about how to behave in the world.

Compound nouns — ‘piggy-back’, ‘bull-fight’ — the games that the father usually plays
with the child use compound nouns, which give a childish and playful impression. We realise
that the father is not a typically harsh or stern man and that he prefers playing with his son to
disciplining him.

Metaphor / single line stanza — ‘You must not make a plaything of the rain’ The poem
ends with a single line, about how we should take the rain seriously. Perhaps this is a
metaphor suggesting that things we don’t like sometimes are important and good for us. The
father wants to play with the boy, but he needs him to take the discipline seriously.

STRUCTURE / FORM
Each stanza is one single sentence, exploring a different idea. This gives quite a narrative
feeling to the poem, as if it is an anecdote or experience.

The first three stanzas are 7, 6 and 6 lines respectively. They contain a relatively large
amount of detail, which contrasts with the final stanza — a monostich (single line). The last
line ‘You must not make a plaything of the rain’ stands by itself — this proves a point, it
serves as a lasting message — even though some things are difficult or unpleasant, they are
still necessary.

Iambic pentameter — the lines are written in iambic pentameter, ten syllables (five feet) per
line, each foot comprised of an unstressed-stressed syllable. This metre is said to closely
imitate natural speech, so it gives the poem a conversational style that makes it seem as if
the speaker is entering into an open discussion with his child about the behaviour.
There is no formal rhyme scheme, though there is some assonance (sounds that connect
through vowels) throughout. E.g. spite / hurt, tight / bright eyes, feet / hint > soft rhyming
sounds through the poem give it a lullaby quality, similar to the language of fairytale.

CONTEXT
Written in 2006

Mervyn Morris is a famous Jamaican poet (81 years old) — the poem was written when he
was in his 70s, so he is looking back at a time where either he is the father, acting like this to
his young son, or he is the child, thinking about his father’s attitude to discipline.

In the West Indies (including Jamaica), corporal punishment — physically hitting a child
as a form of discipline — is still used as a valid method of discipline in family homes, though
it is not allowed at schools and the cultural acceptance of it is starting to change. In 1986, it
was outlawed in the UK as illegal to practise in schools and it is culturally frowned upon by
most people. In the USA, some states have outlawed it whereas in others it remains legal.
Therefore, it remains a controversial issue in today’s society and there are varying levels of
acceptance of this form of behaviour worldwide. Morris is likely harkening back to a time
decades ago — either when he was a parent (perhaps fifty years prior to the poem being
written) or when he was a child (seventy years prior).

THEMES
Relationships — the father and son have a bitter relationship at the moment of the poem, but
not always. The father often plays ‘piggy-back’ and ‘bull-fight’ with the son, so we know that
at other times they have a happy relationship.

Vulnerability — both the son and the father are fragile, but the son doesn’t realise his father
is feeling vulnerable. Family relationships can often be fraught with conflict as there is a need
for older generations to discipline the younger, and for the younger to rebel or push the
boundaries that are imposed upon them.

Parenting — the poem explores ways in which a parent shapes a child’s development, and
knowledge that they pass on to the child. The father feels that hitting a child and delivering
physical punishment is an acceptable way to teach the son a lesson.

Love — even though the father has hurt the boy, he does so out of love. He has an urge to
play with the boy and comfort him, but he knows that the boy needs to learn a lesson. In a
sense, punishment and discipline are ways of demonstrating love, according to the speaker.
POSSIBLE ESSAY QUESTIONS:
Explore the ways in which Morris’ words and images create feelings of sadness in ‘Little
Boy Crying’?

How does Morris make memories so vivid in ‘Little Boy Crying’?

In what ways does Morris make ‘Little Boy Crying’ such a powerful poem about
relationships?