The Bogeyman Poem Analysis

Jack Prelutsky is an American writer of children's poetry. Prelutsky writes the poem “The Bogeyman” which is in his poetry collection titled “Nightmares: Poems to Trouble your Sleep” written in 1976. The poem describes the horrifying features of the monster named “Bogeyman” who lives in a darker, dangerous place waiting to attack anyone who comes near. The speaker of the poem warns the audience of the danger of ever encountering the creature. In the poem “The Bogeyman,” Jack Prelutsky uses many literary devices such as repetition, tone, and atmosphere or mood to produce a more interesting poem and evoke emotion, such as fear, from the readers. Repetition and rhymes emphasis fear and create patterns making the poem flow more smoothly, while
Repetition is used to send fear to the readers by getting the point across and also creating a pattern within the poem. Repetition is the act of repeating a word or phrase to emphasize its meanings. In the poem, Prelutsky repeats ,“He's waiting . . . just waiting . . . to get you,” (4) because he wants his readers to feel frightened of the beast and to make the audience feel targeted. The author wants the reader to know that the Bogeyman is out to get them and repeating the phrase more than once will make it stuck in the audience’s head. When repeating a phrase more than once, contrasting ideas are derogated and leave the audience’s mind. Therefore, the readers will not have any optimistic thoughts, and fear of the Bogeyman will be the only emotion they will experience. Since Prelutsky includes the same phrase at the end of each stanza, creating a pattern within the poem. A pattern helps make the poem flow smoothly and gives hint to the audience of what the next line might be. When using repetition to create pattern, a sudden change in the poem will stand out more to the readers. Prelutsky disrupts the pattern when the last line of his stanza states, “What he'll do . . . when he gets you!” (16). The change in repetition will be