“The Whipping,” by Robert Hayden This poem is about Hayden who hears a boy being beaten, recalls his childhood when he too was subjected to the same and notices that this form of punishment has been handed down from generation to generation. He uses visual and auditory imagery together to take the reader to different moments in time, where the same event is being played over and is put in six quatrains to add emphasis. …showed first 75 words of 1197 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1197 total…light” and “It is as a Vesuvian face.” This implies that the gun does grin, though it is when the Stewart 5 gun is being fired, which last only momentarily and is a flash of bright amber light. Dickinson concludes with a paradox statement of the gun having a longer life span, or is it the man living longer, with his memory and afterlife, or the gun again, which can kill but can not experience death.