The poems “A Stone’s Throw” and “The Woman Who Speaks To The Man Who Has Employed Her Son” are about how women are treated. For each poem (a) Briefly describe what is taking place (8mks) (b) Discuss the speaker’s attitude towards women. (8mks) (c) Discuss 1 device which is used effectively to convey the treatment of women. (9mks).
The poems “A Stone’s Throw” and “The Woman Who Speaks To The Man Who Has Employed Her Son” both deal with different views of women and how they are treated. The speakers in each poem have different attitudes towards women and various devices are utilized to illustrate the treatment of women in each poem. In the poem “A Stone’s Throw”, a group of self-righteous men earnestly wanted to stone and condemn an indecent prostitute when they said, “We’ve got her! Here she is!...We caught her.” This shows that the mob of men was eager to stone and brutalize the woman. The speaker was part of the crowd that wanted to stone the woman and he felt his actions were justified. The mob “roughed her up” and justified their cruelty by describing it as “nothing much”. The speaker continuously justified his brutality towards the woman by saying, “For justice must be done specially when it tastes so good.” This further showed that the sadistic speaker would thoroughly enjoy brutalizing and stoning the woman because he claimed it to be an act of “justice” and described it as tasting so good. Suddenly, someone interrupted the mob and “spoilt the whole thing.” A “guru, preacher, God-merchant, God-knows-what“ approached the mob and then knelt by and spoke to the woman. The speaker addressed the man in a scornful and disrespectful manner and implied in brackets that “(should never speak to them)”. This shows that the speaker was condescending towards the woman and referred to the woman and prostitutes as ”them”. The “preacher” squatted to the ground at “her level” and looked at the woman and then judged the crowd. The woman looked and