A Stone’s Throw
Overview of the Poem
A crowd has caught a woman (Line 2: ‘We’ve got her! Here she is’). The persona implies to the
reader that the woman is not decent (Line 6: ‘A decent-looking woman, you’d have said,’// Lines
11-14: And not the first time//By any means//She’d felt men’s hands//Greedy over her
body’). The persona states that the woman has experienced men’s hands on her body before, but
this crowd’s hands were virtuous (Lines 15-16: ‘But ours were virtuous,//Of course’).
He also makes a proviso that if this crowd bruises her, it cannot be compared to what she has
experienced before. The persona also speaks about a last assault and battery to come. He justifies
this last assault by calling it justice, and it is justice that feels not only right, but good. The crowd’s
‘justice’ is placed on hold by the interruption of a preacher, who stops to talk to the lady.
He squats on the ground and writes something that the crowd cannot see. Essentially, the
preacher judges them, thereby allowing the lady to also judge the crowd, leading to the crowd
inevitably judging itself. The crowd walks away from the lady, still holding stones [which can be seen
as a metaphor for judgments that can be thrown another day.
Literary Devices
SARCASM:
The persona is making the point that the lady was in fact NOT decent looking.
PERSONIFICATION :
This device is particularly effective because the word ‘kisses’ is used. Kiss implies something
pleasant, but it is actually utilized to emphasize something painful that has happened to the lady;
she was stoned.
PUN :
Title: The title of the poem is itself a pun on two levels. A stone’s throw is used by many people in
the Caribbean to describe a close distance. eg. “She lives a stone’s throw away”. The other use of the
title is to highlight the content of the poem. It is a figurative stoning, or judging, of a woman.
ALLUSION (biblical) The content of the poem alludes to the story of Mary Magdalene in the
Christian Bible. See John 8 v 5-7.
CONTRAST
Lines 13-15: These lines show that the men who were ‘holding stones’ believe they are more morally
upright than the other men with whom the woman associates.
IRONY
One would think that men with ‘virtuous’ hands would have only pure thoughts, but these men
intend to stone the woman , who seems utterly defenseless. Also, images of cruelty are used, such
as ‘bruised’, ‘kisses of stone’, ‘battery’ and ‘frigid rape’.
TONE
The tone of the poem is mixed. At times it is almost braggadocious, then it becomes sarcastic,
moving to scornful.
Additional Analysis
This poem is a very closely and cleverly crafted dramatisation. It illustrates the way poetry uses
implicit dramatisation to reveal and comment on issues. This is done without any specific reference,
without explanations. It shows something without telling it. There are no explicit details, but the
dramatic nature of the narrative in the poem directs the minds, the thinking, of the readers to the
issues the poem wants to focus. There is a speaking voice – a man who narrates an event in his own
words, providing details of the incident while unintentionally revealing much about himself and his
companions.
A group of men caught a woman who seems to have committed some serious offence or violation
punishable by stoning to death. The poem does not tell us what it is, but the several lines and
references suggest it is something of a sexual nature and the men are about to carry out their
judgment. They are, however, interrupted by a stranger who causes them to take a good look at
themselves, have doubts and abort their mission. The final stanza suggests that, though prevented
on this occasion, the men have not changed or repented and are prepared to do the same thing
again.
While the poem does not tell explicitly what was happening we are not really left guessing, because
the poem is obviously using a biblical allusion. It retells a story from the Bible (John 8; 3 – 11), well
known even to many who might not be Christians or who might not know the Bible. A woman was
caught in adultery, punishable at that time, according to the law, by stoning to death. She was taken
to Jesus, who was urged to pronounce the expected sentence of death. But Jesus spoke quietly to
her while writing in the dust on the ground and, instead, challenged her accusers, uttering the oft
quoted words “let him that is without sin cast the first stone.” This effectively halted them and the
woman was spared.
The poet uses the technique of narrative point-of-view. A great deal is gained by having the story
told in the poem by one of the men eager to stone the woman. Several lines in the poem tell us
about him and his companions who take a very perverse, greedy, sexual pleasure out of their
mission – “we roughed her up”; “men’s hands/Greedy over her body”; “our fingers bruised/Her
shuddering skin”; “it tastes so good”, and “Given the urge”. The poem uses several ironies. The men
are self-righteous, ready to condemn others while they themselves are guilty. They describe their
own greedy hands as “ours were virtuous, /Of course”; their violation of the woman as being “of
right”, claiming “Justice must be done.”
Another important technique used by Mitchell is the central metaphor or central imagery of the
poem, which has to do with sex and violence. The woman is roughed up, indecently handled by her
captors who are about to stone her; note the startling chilling crude imagery (typical of Mitchell) of
sexual violence in the fourth stanza especially, but running through the poem. Note also the other
sexual innuendos elsewhere. Note as well the use of almost throw-away understatements, such as
those remarks in brackets which come from the dramatisation – the conversational tone of the
narrative which reveals the speaker’s thoughts and biased, prejudicial, judgmental attitudes.
Then in stanza six the poet pinpoints that people are quick to pass judgment upon others but hardly
ever look at themselves. Probably for the first time these men are forced to do that and are quite
uncomfortable and wrong-footed. The final stanza, though, shows that they are unrepentant,
unchanged. This brings to mind a powerful statement of the poem – that even in modern times, long
after biblical days our society has not changed because men behave the same way.
The poem’s title is significant in this respect. The poem is about the throwing of stones, but it also
refers to the troubling issue of violence against women; the occasional cases of women condemned
to death by stoning in extreme Islamist states according to Sharia law. What took place in the Bible
all those years ago is still with us. It is only “a stone’s throw” away.
THEMES:
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Discrimination- The poor treatment the persona receives by the men in the poem as a
result of her profession.
Religion
Appearance vs Reality
Hypocrisy
Oppression
Power and Powerlessness