A Lesson for This Sunday
Derek Walcott, 1930 - 2017
Allusion
to
slavery
Summer grass symbolizes man’s brief lifespan that is quickly cut down. lemon
frock and yellow wings represent in turn Nature, innocence, harmlessness and
vulnerability. The girl in the lemon dress parallels the butterfly. Both are
supposed to be joyous “innocent” creatures, but the girl’s childish innocence is
deceptively deadly. The persona’s garden represents the Garden of Eden, with
the children as Adam and Eve through which sin enters the garden and
disturbs the speaker’s rest.
The growing idleness of summer grass symbolism
With its frail kites of furious butterflies metaphor
Requests the lemonade of simple praise
In scansion gentler than my hammock swings
And rituals no more upsetting than a
Black maid shaking linen as she sings
The plain notes of some Protestant hosanna
Since I lie idling from the thought in things,
Or so they should. Until I hear the cries
Of two small children hunting yellow wings,
Who break my Sabbath with the thought of sin.
Brother and sister, with a common pin,
Frowning like serious lepidopterists. simile
The little surgeon pierces the thin eyes.
Crouched on plump haunches, as a mantis prays pun
She shrieks to eviscerate its abdomen.
The lesson is the same. The maid removes
Both prodigies from their interest in science.
The girl, in lemon frock, begins to scream
As the maimed, teetering thing attempts its flight.
She is herself a thing of summery light,
Frail as a flower in this blue August air,
Not marked for some late grief that cannot speak.
The mind swings inward on itself in fear
Swayed towards nausea from each normal sign.
Heredity of cruelty everywhere,
And everywhere the frocks of summer torn,
The long look back to see where choice is born,
As summer grass sways to the scythe’s design.
the
metaphorical
imagery in the
first
stanza
comprise
images
of
peace
The similes: “frowning”
and “crouched” suggest
the
child’s
predatory
nature and “frail” simile
link the child’s vulnerable
stage to the metaphor of
frail kites as butterflies
The frailty of Nature and the children is suggested in the light
airiness of the lemon frock and the yellow wings of the
butterfly and also in the reference to the yellow grass beneath
the scythe’s design.
*scythe - a tool used for cutting crops such as grass or corn, with a long curved blade at the end of a long pole
attached to one or two short handles.
An adult is sitting in a hammock in his garden enjoying a peaceful Sunday morning when his
repose (relaxation) is shattered by the appearance of two boisterous children, a little girl and boy
– whose chief recreation seems to reside in tormenting the harmless creatures of Nature. Their
cruel game sickens the speaker and his Sunday rest is spoilt as he reflects on the concept of
original sin. He also wonders, in the light of the incongruity (strangeness) he has just witnessed,
at what point the individual begins to make conscious choices to do good and evil.
The persona in the poem prompted by a disturbing demonstration of cruelty on the part of young
children, ponders upon the oddness of it all, when from birth, as it were, children practise an
instinctive brutality.
The fact that it is Sunday, traditionally a religious day and a day of rest, emphasizes the
unseemliness of the children’s violent behaviour. The persona’s day begins typically as a
peaceful, leisurely morning with only a hymn-singing maid softly interrupting the silence. The
sudden cries of the children come as an unwelcome intrusion upon his serenity. First he hears
their screams of excitement, and then he sees them in action as in their innocent but ruthless
curiosity they interact with Nature. Unfeelingly they pierce the eyes of the butterfly then try to
‘eviscerate the abdomen” until the maid stops their rough game, the angelic little girl screaming
in angry protest. The speaker finds it paradoxical that such an innocent little child can be capable
of such savagery.
The persona notes the similarity between the frailty of the girl and the airy yellow butterfly, both
vulnerable creatures and even though he believes she is safe for the moment shudders at the
thought of her being violated in the same way in the future by some similarly cruel han.
His mind further recoils in fear because of the thought of man’s ancestral nature (heredity of
cruelty) – all individuals have the potential for inhumanity unless they choose to do good. The
speaker wonders when choice would begin to be exerted to influence behaviour. The transitory
nature of ma’s existence also forms part of his final thoughts as he reflects on our centuries-old
history of violence, our ensuing moral development over the years and finally, our mortality. The
lesson learnt on that Sunday is profound: it would seem that man’s entire life is subject to an
external design and he is born with a sinful nature, lives a frail and precarious existence and may
be cut down like summer grass at any time.
Original/Ancestral sin and Free will
Growing up
Cruelty to Nature
Man’s inhumanity to man
Religion/sin
Mortality