Succinct analysis of the poem 'The Woman Speaks To The Man Who Has Employed Her Son'.

1. The Woman Speaks to the Man Who Has Employed Her
Son
Summary: The persona in this poem is telling the story of a mother who loved her son. The
mother became aware of the child's presence when she experienced morning
sickness. She placed all her hopes in the child and raised him as a single parent
because his father was indifferent to the child's existence. The mother had set
no barriers on what the child could become, but he grows up to work for some
criminal who drags him into a war and gives him a firearm.
The son tells his mother that his employer is like a father to him, but the mother
wonders at the father figure who purposefully endangers his child. She prepares
for her son's death by going downtown to buy funeral apparel. The mother feels
powerless, so she prays for her child and says protective psalms for him. On the
other hand, she reads psalms of retribution for the employer and weeps for her
son. Her situation does not look good and is likened to a partner system in which
she draws both the first and the last hand.
Genre: Dramatic
Structure: The poem is written in Free Verse and consists of six unrhymed octets. It follows
no specific meter.
Themes: Categories: Death, Love, Survival, Dreams, Childhood Experiences, Religion
 Love: a mother’s love for her son and her hope that he succeeds in life.
 Importance of Father Figures – the poem explores the importance of father
figures in the upbringing of children. Mothers cannot father sons; the role is
tailored for men. This is shown when the son finds a man who seems to
‘value’ him. Being appreciated by a woman is not the same for a boy as being
respected by a man. Gaining respect from a masculine figure imbues a sense
of manliness into a boy. Hence the son is vulnerable to being fooled and used
by a man who pretends to care for him, and this is the situation with many
young gang members today.
 Power of Prayer: the poem shows the woman’s trust in God and her belief in
prayer. Caribbean culture is very evident in this poem as we people believe in

2. the efficacy of the psalms. Take the 23rd psalm for example. Christians use
prayer as a way of communicating their concerns and worries to God.
Mood: The mood of the poem though not happy, starts off as buoyant and optimistic. It
seemed as though it was going to be a success story whereby a single mother
invested all her love and attention to a boy who would go onto achieve great
things. The lines “set no ceiling on what he could be” brings the reader to think
of this.
This mood doesn’t last though as it soon deteriorates into disappointment and
grief when the mother learns that her son has become a criminal. The mood of
hopelessness soon becomes evident when the mother purchases funeral wear
and is underscored by a lurking sense of sadness and tragic acceptance. The
woman accepts that her son’s way of living and earning money will get him
killed. The phrase “bloody salary” is testament to this.
The mood of the poem is also reflective. The persona is thinking about a
mother's response to her son's life choices.
Tone: The tone of the poem is conversational. It is as if the narrator is conversing with
the reader. This tone is quite effective since the poem is a narrative and is telling
a story. Towards the end the tone begins to sound more pessimistic and is
highlighted by the mother’s hopelessness for her son’s survival and her
acceptance that his death is imminent.
Techniques: The poet uses rhetorical apostrophe to tell the reader the story of the mother
and son. The persona is speaking to the boy’s ‘employer’ telling him of the grief
which he brought to mother by endangering her son. It is as if the persona wants
the ‘employer’ to feel the hurt, pain and disappointment of the mother and to
tell him how much the mother resents him. This helps convey the mother’s
feelings in a more intense manner. Also even though the persona uses ‘you’ to
address the employer, sometimes it seems to the reader as if the persona is
addressing them. This helps the reader to feel the mother’s pain, anger and
shame and almost forces the reader to evoke sympathy for the mother.
Devices:
1. Simile:
 Lines 9-10: “She carried him like the poor carry hope” Poor people have no
wealth and usually no chance of breaking through poverty. Hope for life to

3. improve is all they have. Hence the writer compares to the mother to poor
people carrying hope in the sense that she carried the boy in her womb and took
care of him like he was the only thing she had. She invested all her faith, love and
attention into him hoping that he would become successful in life one day.
 Line 25: “He says you are like a father to him” The son compares the ‘employer’
to a father, stating that the employer values him. The son is fooled in thinking
that the criminal employer cares him when actually the man just want to use the
boy as one his of minions in a war. The son is brainwashed so badly that he
believes the man gave him the gun because he valued him.
2. Sarcasm: The persona appears to praise the child's father by referring to him as 'fair-
minded'. She is, however, chastising him for not only ignoring his son, but all of
his other children. She calls him fair, but what she really means is that he is
unjust.
3. Irony: The son innocently tells his mother that his employer values him so much that he
gave him a whole submachine gun for himself. The irony in this situation is that if
you really care about someone, you do NOT give them a gun due to the negative
results that are bound to occur.
4. Allusion (Biblical):
 Lines 26 – 28: This line alludestoaparticularverse in the Christian Bible, Luke 11 vs 11
which says “Which of you fathers, if your son asks got a fish, will give him a snake
instead?” The verse questions what the actions of a good father should be.
 Lines 37- 38: Psalms is a particular chapter in the Christian Bible. In this chapter
there are verses for protection, the mother uses those for her son, as well as
verses for retribution and rebuking. It is implied that the mother chooses those
for the employer.
 Lines 41 – 45: In the Christian Bible, Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus. Imagine how
Judas’ mother must have felt - the pain, the shame, the disappointment at her
son's deed! So would the mother of the thief who was crucified along with Jesus.
The mother in our poem claims similar feelings.

4.  Line 49: Absalom is the son of David, in the Christian Bible. Absalom betrayed his
father, which implies that the mother feels betrayed by her son because she has
placed all her hopes in him and he throws it all away.
Symbolism: Goodison uses the concept of a partnership to symbolize mothers’ hopes for
their sons.
A partnership is an informal saving scheme set up with a specific number of
individuals for the duration of a specific time span. Each person agrees to pay
a designated figure on a monthly basis. The mother invests her everything into
her son. Her attention, money, faith, hopes etc. The 'draws' are decided,
meaning who gets the money first, second, third etc, on a monthly basis. The
banker then collects the money and gives the monthly pool to the person who
is to receive their 'draw'. Therefore, a 'partnership' is dependent upon the
honesty of the banker, who could abscond with the money, as well as the
honesty of the members of the savings scheme, who could decide NOT to pay
after they have received their draw.
The persona speaks of being in a 'partner' with Judas' mother and the mother of
the thief on the left-hand side of the cross, acknowledging that these three
mothers have lost all that they had invested in their sons. For her, it is worst
than for the other women, for she had invested her all. She had given her son
everything she had as she was playing the roles of both mother and father.
The mother has the advantage of first draw as mother, she loses that advantage
because she also has the role of father. Mothers cannot father sons. The fact
that the son has found a father figure proves this to be true. Therefore, she has
the last draw, which carries with it the disadvantage of not receiving a full 'draw'.
The longer one waits for a draw is the most likely that dishonesty will come into
play on the part of the participants.
These mothers invested into their sons but did not receive anything in return
worthy of their investments.