Analysis of The Wicked Postman

Rabindranath Tagore 1861 (Kolkata) – 1941 (Kolkata)



Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me,
mother dear?
    The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all
wet, and you don't mind it.
    Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother
to come home from school.
    What has happened to you that you look so strange?
    Haven't you got a letter from father today?
    I saw the postman bringing letters in his bag for almost
everybody in the town.
    Only father's letters he keeps to read himself. I am sure the
postman is a wicked man.
    But don't be unhappy about that, mother dear.
    Tomorrow is market day in the next village. You ask your maid
to buy some pens and papers.
    I myself will write all father's letters; you will not find
a single mistake.
    I shall write from A right up to K.
    But, mother, why do you smile?
    You don't believe that I can write as nicely as father does!
    But I shall rule my paper carefully, and write all the letters
beautifully big.
    When I finish my writing do you think I shall be so foolish
as father and drop it into the horrid postman's bag?
    I shall bring it to you myself without waiting, and letter by
letter help you to read my writing.
    I know the postman does not like to give you the really nice
letters.


Scheme ABCDEFGHIJKLBMNOPHQRNSTUVWXN
Poetic Form
Metre 1111110111001011 101 0111001010101011 101111 111011011111110 11111 11101111111 101101011001 11010101001111 100001 1010101111011110 1010101 111010011101 011101001101111 1111010 1111110101111 01001 111101111 1101111 110111111101101 1111110100011010 1001 1110110111111110 1100110101011 111111101100101 101111110 110101111110101 10
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,265
Words 241
Sentences 21
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 28
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 34
Words per line (avg) 9
Letters per stanza (avg) 945
Words per stanza (avg) 239
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 29, 2023

1:14 min read
164

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore FRAS was an Indian polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He reshaped Bengali literature and music as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. more…

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