A Lesson For this Sunday

• Poet:

  Derek Walcott
• "With its frail kites of furious butterflies" Alliteration of the 'f' sound. The butterflies are frail/delicate
• "Black maid shaking linen as she sings, the plain notes of some protestant hosnanna" Black slaves would sing hosannas to God. (symbolic to slavery)
• The poem is symbolic to the suffering of nature and how mankind can be cruel and takes apart in causing the destruction and harm onto nature . And how Cruelty can start from a young age
• "The little surgeon pierces the thin eyes. Crouched on plump haunches, a mantis preys" Metaphor. Compares the little girl to a surgeon and a mantis, which further emphasizes on the tortures being enacted to the butterfly.
• "Heredity of cruelty everywhere"- symbolic to how normalized cruelty has become as it passes from generation to generation. And how it affects both nature and mankind.
• Literary Techniques:

  Metaphor

  Alliteration/Consonance

  Symbolism

  Personification

  Irony
• Themes:

  Nature

  Religion

  Suffering and Sadness

  Power and Powerlessness