Child Of Our Time

Child Of Our Time

1. Violence in society - Tone alternates between tenderness and bitterness

   • The speaker traces the failure of society to protect and nourish its children and accuses it of sabotaging the fragile limbs of innocence
     • Spoken with considerable anger and perhaps guilt

2. Despite the focus on musical terms, the poet wants to emphasis the horrible sound of the child's "Final cry"

   • Instead of... He has had his maimed body removed from the ruins of bombed building
     • Child was murdered by the adult world

3. Claims that our "idle talk" has led to this violence/cost this child's life and people must realise the consequences

4. Similar to "The war horse" which also discusses the horrific effects of war

5. Link to the pomegranate which also describes losing a child - To adulthood

6. Title acts as the tone - "our" suggesting a sense of responsibility, which encompasses the - placed in a position of authority

7. Emotional response to an innocent victim of violence

   • We have created a violent world that makes victims of our children

8. She laments the death of a young boy who was killed in the Dublin bombings of 1974