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    A Lesson For This Sunday Analysis

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    Sangene Collymore-Ward
    This poem discusses the poet observing nature on a summer day, including a black maid singing while shaking linen. The meditation is interrupted by children hunting and torturing a yellow butterfly with a pin. Though the maid stops the children, the butterfly tries to escape its painful situation. The poet is disgusted by the lack of consideration for the butterfly's feelings. The last line suggests capitalism is designed to crush the spirit of those with low financial status, reinforcing that capitalism is institutionalized.

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    A Lesson For This Sunday Analysis

    Uploaded by

    Sangene Collymore-Ward
    832 views1 page
    This poem discusses the poet observing nature on a summer day, including a black maid singing while shaking linen. The meditation is interrupted by children hunting and torturing a yellow butterfly with a pin. Though the maid stops the children, the butterfly tries to escape its painful situation. The poet is disgusted by the lack of consideration for the butterfly's feelings. The last line suggests capitalism is designed to crush the spirit of those with low financial status, reinforcing that capitalism is institutionalized.

    Original Description:

    Analysis of A Lesson for This Sunday by Derek Walcott

    Original Title

    A Lesson for This Sunday Analysis

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    This poem discusses the poet observing nature on a summer day, including a black maid singing while shaking linen. The meditation is interrupted by children hunting and torturing a yellow butterfly with a pin. Though the maid stops the children, the butterfly tries to escape its painful situation. The poet is disgusted by the lack of consideration for the butterfly's feelings. The last line suggests capitalism is designed to crush the spirit of those with low financial status, reinforcing that capitalism is institutionalized.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    832 views1 page

    A Lesson For This Sunday Analysis

    Uploaded by

    Sangene Collymore-Ward
    This poem discusses the poet observing nature on a summer day, including a black maid singing while shaking linen. The meditation is interrupted by children hunting and torturing a yellow butterfly with a pin. Though the maid stops the children, the butterfly tries to escape its painful situation. The poet is disgusted by the lack of consideration for the butterfly's feelings. The last line suggests capitalism is designed to crush the spirit of those with low financial status, reinforcing that capitalism is institutionalized.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 1

    A Lesson For This Sunday Analysis

    Stanza 1:

    It’s summer time. The poet uses summer time imagery to reflect this
    (butterflies, lemonade, swinging in hammock).
    The poet is observing nature and everything around him. He is appreciating
    his surroundings.
    “Black maid shaking linen as she sings” is a reference to the typical social
    status of a person of colour in the society of the time.

    Stanza 2:

    The children hunting the “yellow wings” broke his meditation.


    They use a common pin and torture the butterfly.
    The maid interrupts the siblings from injuring the butterfly any further. The
    girl is resistant and the butterfly tries to fly away to escape its torturers.
    What is fun for the children is painful for the butterfly. This is a contrast in
    feelings.
    The butterfly is supposed to be a thing of fragile beauty not something to be
    maliciously troubled.

    Stanza 3:

    The poet is disgusted by the inhumane things that were done to the butterfly.
    Generations of this class seem not to take other people’s feelings into
    consideration.
    The last line of the poem, “As summer grass sways to the scythe’s design” –
    to me this depicts how in the capitalist society, capitalism is designed to
    crush the enthusiasm of living for people of low financial status. From
    reading this poem, it definitely reinforces the point that capitalism is
    obviously institutionalized.

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