Analysis of Requiem for Bigger Thomas
Chei, Bigger Thomas
how you died--
roasted on the electric chair!
How I wish you had earned your first salary
before you got into trouble!
Neither you nor your mother
and siblings enjoyed your first pay.
Just the first day at work
and you got entangled in Mary Dalton's web of disaster.
See Mary!
See Bigger!
See Mary !
See trouble!
Mary Dalton and Jan led you as a lamb to the slaughter
to
your doom.
Your mother
Missed you
Your brother, Buddy and sister, Vera missed you.
Your friends--Gus, Jack and GH
missed you.
Come Bigger,
but, why didn't you announce to the Daltons that Mary was drunk;
at least you could have saved yourself!
But, Bigger, you are a criminal;
why did you murder Bessie?
I was pained by her death.
She gave you warm milk;
you drank her milk
and slept with her
and then murdered her!
Chei!
Ingratitude.
But, Bigger, why did you demand for ransom after killing Mary?
| Scheme | xax bcdx xd BdBc dex dEe fE dxf cbxggddxa b |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 11010 111 10100101 11111111100 01110110 1011110 01001111 101111 0110100101011010 110 110 110 110 101001111011010 1 11 110 11 110100101011 111101 11 110 1110101101011011 11111101 110110100 1111010 111101 11111 1101 0110 01100 1 1 11011101110101010 |
| Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
| Characters | 902 |
| Words | 195 |
| Sentences | 18 |
| Stanzas | 10 |
| Stanza Lengths | 3, 4, 2, 4, 3, 3, 2, 3, 9, 1 |
| Lines Amount | 34 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 20 |
| Words per line (avg) | 5 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 69 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 16 |
About this poem
Bigger Thomas is the main character in Richard Wright's famous novel, Native Son. Bigger, a black boy, murders Mary Dalton, a white girl, by accident, and is executed. The novel is set in the USA in the 40's
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"Requiem for Bigger Thomas" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/167305/requiem-for-bigger-thomas>.
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