Comparative Essay

ive ERachel Wong
Comparative Essay.

Little Boy Crying by Mervyn Morris is a poem about a child being disciplined by his father. Although the child has a strong hate towards the father, after being disciplined, the father is sorrowful and guilty. He also wishes to comfort the child, but dare not ruin the lesson he is supposed to learn. The Toys by Conventry Patmore is a poem about a father struggling to teach his son discipline by himself. The child has lost his mother, making the father take on the whole responsibility. The father asks God to help him look after his child. The poet Mervyn Morris describes the poem, Little Boy Crying by using imagery and other literary techniques. Conventry Patmore also does not contain a large amount of literary techniques but he does use imagery. Words that are used in Little Boy Crying are words that describe what is happening. For example, “contorting” and “metamorphosed” are used to describe the how the child had transformed from happy-go-lucky to howling with tears. However, Conventry Patmore uses words like “grown-up wise” and “thoughtful eyes” showing the readers that the child had to grow up much earlier and has suffered with problems that’s adults had to deal with. Little Boy Crying uses literary techniques such as personification, alliteration, assonance and imagery. Personification is shown in the poem as this, “your bright eyes/ Swimming with tears…” Alliteration is describes like this, “…colossal cruel…chopping clean…” “The ogre towers above you…” is assonance. Mervyn Morris uses imagery to illustrate a situation between father and son. The effects of the literary techniques, creates the mood and tone of the poem. The mood of the poem is hateful and sorrowful. On the other hand, Conventry Patmore does not use large amounts of literary techniques because he wants the poem, The Toys to be simple and gets to the point. It contains alliteration and has a rhyme scheme. “Copper coins…bottle with bluebells…six or seven shells.” Those are some examples of alliteration found in the poem. The rhyme scheme is A, A, B, B. The effects of the literary techniques make its more interesting, because the poet wanted the poem to be simple and not littered in techniques. Imagery is important to both of the poems. In Little Boy Crying it is used to illustrate a situation between the father and son. Also allowing the readers to see and feel the child’s hatred towards the father. The son pictures the father as an “ogre” or “grim giant”, showing the child’s vivid fairytale fantasy. In The Toys it is used to the pain and sorrow the child has suffered as well as the father. For example, “He had put, within his reach… to comfort his sad heart.” He had arranged some trinkets that had reminded him of his mother, hoping to feel close to her and to cope with the pain he had endured from his father.
The structure of Little Boy Crying is that, it is setup in three stanzas. The first stanza changes the mood from happy to sad. Stanza two is showing the hate the child has to the father. The third stanza is about the father’s feelings towards his actions. However, The Toys is setup in one long continuous stanza. I believe Conventry Patmore had meant the poem’s layout to be like this because it is supposed to be on continuous thought or outpour of emotions.
In conclusion, I would say the poems are fairly similar. I think they are because they both have to do with discipline and the relationship with the father and son, but the child from The Toys poem has no influence from the mother whereas the child from Little Boy Crying may have a mother figure. Little Boy Crying is filled with literary devices creating the mood. However The Toys is not so filled with literary techniques. Nevertheless imagery is a vital part in both poems. Structures of the poems are very different whereas one is separated in three stanzas to emphasize certain points in the poem, and the other is one long stanza to make it seem like an continuous thought. Both of these poems are beautifully written and with Little Boy Crying I can relate to it, but with The Toys I can’t. However it was written in such a way that I could almost feel his pain.