Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The poem is told from a first-person perspective. The speaker is a man who experienced hardship from the moment he was born.
Form and Meter
The poem is written in five quatrains with an ABAB rhyme scheme.
Metaphors and Similes
The speaker uses similes in the lines: "I cut my teeth as the black raccoon" and "On a night that was black as tar."
Alliteration and Assonance
There is alliteration in the S sounds of the lines "Some are teethed on a silver spoon" and "With the stars strung for a rattle."
Irony
N/A
Genre
Harlem Renaissance poetry
Setting
The setting is not specified, though the father's comments suggest it is rural.
Tone
Forlorn and fatalistic
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist of the poem is the speaker.
Major Conflict
The major conflict of the poem is the speaker's constant struggle against the bad circumstances into which he was born.
Climax
The poem's climax occurs when the speaker describes his father's harsh remarks about his birth.
Foreshadowing
N/A
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The title of the poem is an allusion to the nursery rhyme "Monday's Child"
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
The speaker personifies the concepts of pain, poverty, death and sorrow.
Hyperbole
N/A
Onomatopoeia
N/A
