Sound and Sense 7

Question: Analyze the speaker's tone towards his recounting of being discriminated against by focusing on the use of literary devices such as point of view, and diction.

While riding in old Baltimore, the young speaker initially feels joyful and optimistic, but his feelings are quickly consumed by confusion and rejection after a scarring incident as an innocent child.

The rhyme scheme utilized in the poem demonstrates the innocence of the speaker during the incident.
"Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'"(5-8). The diction throughout the poem is very child-like and similar to a nursery rhyme. The speaker is only eight years old and does not see anything wrong with smiling at the Baltimorean. He was innocent and unaware of racism which was predominant even among small children during that era. The description given by the speaker shows that both the speaker and the Baltimorean are innocent children. The Baltimorean shows his tongue, which is a childish insult. This action represents the unawareness of the children who were being influenced by the adults discriminating around them.

The tone of the speaker changes dramatically from the beginning of the poem to the end, as he realizes that his initial thoughts about the Baltimorean were incorrect. The tone initializes as "heart-filled, [and] head-filled with glee" (2), and later becomes reflective as he thinks back to the incident: "Of all the things that happened there That's all that I remember" (11-12). The shift in the tone causes the last stanza to be more effective because there is an obvious change in the speaker's point of view. His contemplative outlook towards the situation insinuates disappointment and discomfort. Although the speaker was young during the incident, it was a traumatizing occurrence in the speaker's life.