A BASTARD PEACE

THESIS

In the poem A Bastard Peace, the author is trying to convey to the audience how poor society is and that in a society where no one works the community will crumble and only the children will go on.

LANGUAGE

A Bastard Peace can be interpreted in a few different ways because Bastard has multiple meaning. Being born out of wedlock, false or not genuine, and having the appearance of…

We interpreted A Bastard Peace as being another way of saying A False Peace.

A main symbol is the awful setting. Williams uses an odd language pattern in the

4th stanza in saying “The sun parches still the parched grass.” This is a hyperbole.

STRUCTURE

Dashes (--) can be found continually throughout the poem, called end-stopped.

Enjambment is a common occurrence as well, and seems fragmented.

Numbers play an important role because they allow more detail in the poem.

All stanzas start with a capitol letter except for the last one, this is important to notice because the second to last stanza does not end with a dash.

SOUND

Alliteration, within first stanza and last stanza. This use of repetition puts emphasis on important ideas in the poem.

Slight rhyme scheme through out the poem. Williams uses the slant rhyme in this poem,

because in the third stanza there is almost a rhyme in “by” and “butterfly” but the rhyme lacks.

STYLE

Juxtaposition, found in third stanza. Overall mood of the poem is very negative,

leaving the reader to believe that the people in the poem are trapped.

The theme of the poem, perhaps, William Carlos Williams trying to convey to the reader how poor society is and how people are losing jobs.

A reoccurring theme in this poem is joblessness and poverty.

IMAGERY

The title is A Bastard Peace A lot of images that represent peace are

mentioned throughout the poem “A white butterfly, a dandelion in bloom”

This is ironic because the poem is not peaceful as it seems, it’s the opposite of it because it talks about the hard ship that people endured during the Great Depression.

This contributes to the sarcastic tone in the poem.

CLASS ACTIVITY Think of a specific movie, book, article, etc.,

that closely relates to the poem A Bastard Peace and explain why.

On your white boards, draw and describe how you think this setting would look like.