Allegory Of A Boy Crying Poem Annotated

In this poem allegory is shown in the way of something being behind the joy of romping and the father-son love the poet wrote about. The hint behind this is that there is violence. Even though theirs no signs of abuse theirs signs of violence in the poem that contrast with the expectations of the waltz with the father. Lines 1-2 show no violence, but they show that the dad is drunk. With the situation of the dad being drunk, it can lead to violence. Line 3 makes it seem as if the speaker slipped into the end of violence. The way it says that boy “hung on like death” is like he’s holding on to his dad to hard that’s he is inescapable like death. We think that this poem is going to be about a happy relationship between the father and son but instead it frightens us since the beginning of the poem.
We say rough because the word battered is an extreme word for the use of knuckle and signals violence. In lines 11-12 it doesn’t seem as if the father is being violent on purpose, but he is hurting his kid accidently. This makes us think that the kid might be too scared to speak up and tell his dad its hurting him when his ear scrapes the fathers buckle on the belt. Also, the belt makes us remember of how they use it to punish children. The word “beat” in line 13 is telling us something because beat is more of a violent connotation. This word even fits with “battered” because it described the dad’s knuckles. In the whole poem the choices of subtle words build up a undercurrent of