We twenty two and twenty five, who seemed to live forever, observe enduring life in you and start to die together In “My Son, My Executioner,” Donald Hall uses connotative meaning, Imagery and figures of speech to create the overall contrasting metaphors of this poem to express he sentiments and feelings every new parents experience. The two poetic devices Hall makes the most use of would have to be Imagery and metaphoric figurative language. By using tactile, organic, visual and auditory Imagery; the speaker Implants a Blvd image of a father and sons first moments and feelings as his baby Is “Just astir”.
In the first verse he sets up the visual/adulatory scene of a new baby “quiet small and Just astir”. The combination of the tactile sensation when the author says “l take you In my arms” with the organic feel of life and love when he says “and whom y body warm”; not only creates strong sensory Imagery but also hold a lot of metaphoric meaning. Hall uses a variety tot figures tot speech to tell a beautiful emotional story In only three versus. Metaphoric and personification were the two most prevalent figures tot speech.
The presents an executioner as a metaphor tort his son in the first line tot verse one. He also uses two metaphoric contrast when he compares his son to “s death” yet also “our instrument of immortality” in the beginning of line verse two. Sweet death is a metaphoric representation of how the child signifies the ending “death” of their old life as they knew it. Hall amplifies this metaphor when he say “your cries and hunger document/ our bodily decay. ” showing that he is now thee main focus and his needs and growth document their new life of caring for him. Erase gives the metaphor all parents can relate to, about the end of one’s own sell life and the beginning of a selfless one; being the sweet death. In contrast, the b also metaphorically represents “our [the parents] instrument of immortality” beck he will carry on their name and memory. So he represents the sweet death of the old life but also of themselves now growing old, while also representing how he ensures their immortality. The speaker personifies death when he says “Oh sweet death, my son” and uses apostrophe to speak to the boy and death as though the hear/understand.
In order to paint the metaphoric picture and set the scene of him and his en born son, the speaker uses both denotative and connotative language. The speak starts out using both denotative and connotative language but uses denotative language to set the scene. He talks denotative about his son “quiet and small a just astir” to paint the picture of the innocent life of a new born baby. Also in verse en he uses connotative language in the first line when he says “my son, my executioner”.
He is using denotation because he his actually talking about his son connotation because his son is not an executioner. My executioner has the double meaning of representing the way in which the boy is in a sense the executioner o life as he knew it. He then uses connotation in verse two mentioning “sweet dead explain that this death is a good one. All throughout the poem the speaker makes of both denotative and connotative language; denotative to set up the scene and imagery and connotative to express the beautiful double sentiment to this short poem.
