For My Daughter Analysis
In Weldon Kees’ poem, For My Daughter, the narrator speaks of the bleak, dismal, and pessimistic future they envision for their daughter Kees conveys the tone and message of the poem through the usage of rhyme, cacophony, alliteration and synecdoche. Kees uses end rhymes throughout their poem to compare ideas and place emphasis on those particular words. While all of the lines rhyme with at least one other, a specific example of end rhyme is found in lines nine and ten: “Death in certain war, the slim legs green. / Or, fed on hate, she relishes the sting.” The relationship between the two rhyming words at the end of each line, ‘green’ and ‘sting,’ both convey a nasty picture. Green can be associated with the color of an infection or disease.
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In the thirteenth line of the poem, the narrator’s “speculations sour in the sun.” The alliteration of ‘s’ makes the line sound harsh, even though the meaning is less pessimistic than the rest of the poem, as his previous concerns are becoming less likely. However, by grouping these similar hard sounding ‘s’ sounds together, the sentence is difficult to read and continues with the poem’s negative tone. This pessimism continues in the next line, revealing that “I have no daughter. I desire none.” This sudden twist contradicts the previous context created in the beginning, asking the reader to reframe the poem’s audience. Therefore, the daughter might represent the whole next generation, serving as a synecdoche for her generational group. Even though the narrator’s daughter does not really exist, this synecdoche starts the reader thinking of this sad future happening on a smaller scale, but when it expands to an entire generation’s future, the poem’s message becomes more horrific. With this use of synecdoche at the end of the poem, the previous possibility of positivity disappears, instead pointing back toward the dismal, pessimistic future described earlier. The usage of rhyme, cacophony, alliteration and synecdoche help deliver the poem’s message of a sad, dismal future for the next
In the thirteenth line of the poem, the narrator’s “speculations sour in the sun.” The alliteration of ‘s’ makes the line sound harsh, even though the meaning is less pessimistic than the rest of the poem, as his previous concerns are becoming less likely. However, by grouping these similar hard sounding ‘s’ sounds together, the sentence is difficult to read and continues with the poem’s negative tone. This pessimism continues in the next line, revealing that “I have no daughter. I desire none.” This sudden twist contradicts the previous context created in the beginning, asking the reader to reframe the poem’s audience. Therefore, the daughter might represent the whole next generation, serving as a synecdoche for her generational group. Even though the narrator’s daughter does not really exist, this synecdoche starts the reader thinking of this sad future happening on a smaller scale, but when it expands to an entire generation’s future, the poem’s message becomes more horrific. With this use of synecdoche at the end of the poem, the previous possibility of positivity disappears, instead pointing back toward the dismal, pessimistic future described earlier. The usage of rhyme, cacophony, alliteration and synecdoche help deliver the poem’s message of a sad, dismal future for the next