The poem Ballad Of Birmingham is about a young black girl wanting to go support the freedom marches. Her mother wouldn’t let her go because it was going to be too dangerous for a young child. The young girl ended up going to church with her mum, church was supposed to be a safe and sacred place. While she was there a bomb exploded and she was killed. This is a true historical event.
I think Dudely Randeall wrote the poem Ballad Of Birmingham to raise awareness about the bombing and to get sympathy from all of America and the world.
The effect of having two different methods of narration is that we learn from the dialogue that the family is very sweet and it makes us feel sympathy for them, it is so horrible that such a sweet family had something so terrible happen to them. The third person narration informs us on the harsh reality of what happened.
The effect of assonance in stanza 2 is showing us the urgency and strong belief the mother has for her child to stay home. Alliteration is used in stanza 7 ‘ her eyes grew wet and wild.’ The effect of this is the ‘w’ sound makes things move faster, more urgent.
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