Class note for critical analysis of a poem
>"Coup de Grace" p.32
*Use these questions (NOT the wording that you will find in the purple book) when you do a
formal poem analysis for a poem of your choice.
*Be sure to answer all the parts of the question!
1. Who is the speaker in the poem? Give evidence to show how you know who the speaker is.
The speaker in the poem is a narrator who is witnessing the events in the poem. We know this because the poem
is told from a third person Point of View. We know that the narrator is witnessing the events that happen
because the narrator doesn't take part in any of the events. Also, we could say that there is an audience - the last
line of the poem says, "O, what a round of applause!" (l.24, p.32) Applause comes from an audience, so we can
infer that the events might be part of a play, and the narrator is observing both the players and the audience.
2. How does the speaker feel about the subject of the poem? How is this communicated (how do you know)?
a)The subject of the poem is how Little Red Riding Hood outsmarts the wolf.
b)The subject of the poem is the fact that there is no black and white when it comes to good and bad.
a)The speaker feels surprised, because he says "O" several times in the poem (lines 4, 7, 23, 24) and people say
"O" or "Oh" when they are surprised. Surprise is also shown by the exclamation marks at the ends of lines 6, 23
and 24.
b)Our expectations and stereotypes say that the wolf will be the predator and the little girl will be the victim. In
the poem this relationship is reversed, and so our expectations are not realized. We expect the little girl to be
nice and yet she ends up a murderer, and even though the wolf appears bad, he ends up being the victim.
3. What are the dominant images? How do the images support the poem's theme> How do these images add
to the effectiveness of the poem?
One of the dominant images is of the wolf, who represents deception and fear. This adds to the effectiveness of
the poem by making the reader feel afraid for Little Red. Another dominant image is of Little Red eating up the
wolf, because this outcome doesn't happen in the version of the story that we are familiar with and this adds to
the irony of the ending.
4. Does the poet use symbolism to represent anything? >Quote the symbol and tell what it represents. Then
tell how this symbol and what it represents helps the reader understand the meaning of the poem.
One symbol used by the poet is of the woods, which is used to represent darkness, mystery and danger. The
wolf "Steps from the property wood"(l.3) and so this adds to our perception of him as mysterious and
dangerous. Fairy tales that we were told when we were children emphasize the danger of going into the woods
alone - and in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, she gets herself into trouble because she goes into the woods
alone.
5. How would you describe the tone of the poem? (Check your list for examples: happy, insulting, angry,
ironic, petulant, unsettling, tired, bored, exciting, parental, childish, lecturing, tongue-in-cheek...) What
develops this tone? Quote at least one part of the poem and tell me how it helps to create this tone/effect in
the reader.
a)The tone of the poem is ironic because in the first part of the poem we think that Red is going to be eaten by
the wolf. Then, by the end, Red ends up eating the wolf, which is ironic because it turns our expectations on
their head.
b. The tone of the poem is disturbing because we are conditioned to expect to be afraid of wolves and so
when Red eats the wolf, we are disturbed because we don't expect to have to worry about little girls eating
us/wolves.
>We will combine the last three questions into these two: 6. What is the meaning or message of the poem?
Quote at least one detail and then explain how it shows the meaning/message.
The meaning or message of the poem is that things won't always be what you expect them to be. An example of
this is that in this poem, Red eats the wolf and we would expect the wolf to eat her, based on the stories we
already know. In this poem, the language used to describe the wolf is vicious - he has a "slavering grin" (line 2)
which he "opens to gobble her in" (line 5) and so we expect the wolf to eat the little girl, who is described as
"all sugar and spice" (line 22). The meaning could also be described as "don't judge a book by its cover"
because both the little girl and the wolf end up differently than we would expect by the end of the poem. They
are each described in ways that we expect, which makes the twist at the end more effective, and supports this
message.
7. How does the poet use word placement to support the meaning/message of the poem? Look at words
placed at the beginnings and ends of lines, a repeated chorus if there is one, the structure of the poem
(concrete? rhyming and formal? free verse - no rhyming pattern?), quote an example and explain how this
word use adds to the effectiveness of the poet's message.
At the end when the poet mentions "applause" it works well because applause comes at the end of a
performance, and here it closes the action of the poem.
This poem is created with a rhyming pattern that goes abc, abc, def, def, ghi, ghi, jkl, jkl. This is a formal
pattern, and the poem itself is about characters from a fairy tale, which also follow formal patterns, like starting
with "Once upon a time...", so the rhyming pattern and its formality remind us of the fairy tales that it takes its
main characters from.