“A Bastard Peace”
Written By: William Carlos Williams
Thesis:
William uses imagery to involve his
audience within his writing, to imagine
a picture in mind of how poverty
appears. There is always room for
transformation though, never give up
hope.
Language
Imagery
• Symbols
– White Butterfly represents transformation and purity. The
speaker sends out the message that there is still hope for
the community that they are trapped in, there is hope for
the whole society to transform itself out of poverty and
into something greater.
– A dandelion was a connection with the symbol of the white
butterfly because a dandelion represents strong willed an
wishes. Therefore, leading to the assumption that the
speaker talks of there still being hope for the society.
– The children represent hope throughout the poem because
since the adults don’t have jobs anymore and the children
are the only ones attending school, they seem to have a
better future then there parents.
Structure
Ended Stopped:
“-” Breaks at the end of each 4th line.
Uses numbers.
Stanza: 4 Lines per stanza
This affects the way the reader reads the poem, with
these dashes is stimulates breaks within the poem
making the reader to take a breath after the dash in
the stanza.
Each stanza begins with a capitalized word except first
and last stanza
Technique/Style
Juxtaposition: When contrast is being shown by placing two items side
by side of each other.
Theme: Main idea/message  Trapped inside a poor society
Tone: positive  Speaker views the poor society, but yet still seems
to have some hope in the trapped community through the children
and the language throughout the poem.
Mood: The mood of the poem is set off by the tone in the speaker
because however the speaker speaks it sets an automatic feeling
on how the speaker felt towards poverty and what they had to
view and describe.
Point of view: First and third-person perspectives
Sound
• Rhythm: In line lengths
• Rhyme scheme within stanzas.
• Alliteration: Consonant sounds repeated
throughout the poem.
• Put exclamation marks within some
parts of the poem to make the reader
read the poem in a loud voice
A Bastard
• The word Bastard has two meanings.
• One is the son born from an unmarried
couple.
• Another meaning is false, untrue
• The poem is abut false peace, because there
not really living in peace.
Activity
• The poem is about a poor environment and
people living in poverty compare this to a
book or a movie that is similar to the poem.