my parents poem essay

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My Parents Summary & Analysis by Stephen Spender

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"My Parents," by 20th-century British poet Stephen Spender, appears in Spender's 1933 volume Poems . The poem's speaker reflects on his unhappy boyhood. He was born to middle- or upper-class parents who tried to keep him away from "rough boys" (working-class kids), fearing they'd treat him badly. But he couldn't avoid these boys altogether, and their bullying left him with lasting trauma. The poem explores tribalism and the class divide, implicitly questioning whether the speaker's parents took the right approach—or whether, in trying to shelter him, they left him more vulnerable.

• Read the full text of “My Parents”

The Full Text of “My Parents”

“my parents” summary, “my parents” themes.

Childhood and Class Divisions

Bullying and Parenting

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “my parents”.

My parents kept ... ... the country streams.

I feared more ... ... on the road.

They were lithe, ... ... they never smiled.

“My Parents” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Lines 1-2: “who were rough / Who threw words like stones”
• Lines 5-6: “their muscles like iron / Their jerking hands”
• Line 9: “They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges”
• Lines 3-4: “street / And”
• Lines 7-8: “boys / Who”
• Lines 9-10: “hedges / Like”
• Lines 10-11: “mud / While”
• Line 1: “who”
• Line 2: “Who”
• Line 5: “I feared,” “their”
• Line 6: “Their,” “their”
• Line 7: “I feared”
• Line 9: “They,” “they”
• Line 10: “They”
• Line 11: “smile”
• Line 12: “smiled”
• Lines 1-2: “My parents kept me from children who were rough / Who threw words like stones”
• Line 5: “I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron”
• Lines 9-10: “they sprang out behind hedges / Like dogs to bark at my world.”

“My Parents” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Salt coarse
• (Location in poem: Line 1: “My parents kept me from children who were rough”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “My Parents”

Rhyme scheme, “my parents” speaker, “my parents” setting, literary and historical context of “my parents”, more “my parents” resources, external resources.

More on Stephen Spender — Dive into a valuable resource on Spender's life and work.

The Poem Out Loud — Listen to Stephen Spender read "My Parents" and other poems. 

Spender Remembered — Listen to Spender's son Matthew reflect on his father's life.

Spender and the "Auden Group" — Background on the group of poets with whom Spender was closely associated.

Spender's Desert Island Discs — Check out the poet's selection of his favorite pieces of music, and explanations of what they meant to him.

LitCharts on Other Poems by Stephen Spender

An Elementary School Classroom in a Slum

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My Parents by Stephen Spender Analysis

This poem is a reflection on an experience in the childhood of Spencer. The recalls his parents keeping him sheltered from the children of the community he seems to be a weak child while the children in this community were wilder, he never got the chance to go out and play with them and even if he did he seems not to be accepted by them. The bullying he endured as a young child by these neighborhood kids was one of the reasons why they kept him away, they would constantly make fun of his lisp, threw dirt at him, etc. Spencer expresses his desire to make amends with these children but they never gave him an opportunity to do so.

Stanza by Stanza Analysis

The poem begins with the narration by a child Spencer “My parents kept me from children who were rough,// Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes”. Spencer seems to be a sheltered child, he also seems to be from a household that was more affluent. The first line shows what has happened to Spencer, by saying his parents kept him from these children it could be that they were protecting him. The children in the community seem to be poor and would often make fun of Spencer. “There thighs showed through rags they ran in the streets” this line also enforces the notion that these children might be poorer than Spencer. “And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams” the activities in this line are what Spencer may have considered being rough.

This stanza expresses the fear Spencer had of these children how they bullied him “I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron” Spencer equating their muscles to irons shows how much stronger these boys were than him and it also gives an image of a weak and fragile Spencer. “There jerking hands and knees tight on my arms” they physically bullied Spencer as well as pinning him down to beat him, and also verbally abusing him. Spencer who had a lisp “I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys// Who copied my lisp behind me on the road” this stanza shows how much Spencer really feared the ridicule of the neighborhood children.

“They were lithe they sprang out behind hedges, // Like dogs to bark at my world.” The word lithe means the boys were agile. They would be quick when they came out from behind the bushes, they may not have been noticed by Spencer until they started to tease him.

They may not have literally “barked at his world” but meaning the loud abusive bullying that invades Spencer’s space fighting him, making him uncomfortable and sad. “They threw mud// While I looked the other way, pretending to smile.” We can see that even though Spencer was bullied by these boys he also longed for acceptance, he may have also been putting up a brave face. Turning the other was also an allusion to turning the other cheek meaning to forgive, “turning the other way’ trying to look past what they did. ”

I longed to forgive them but they never smiled” as we said before he wanted to forgive them, but they never showed him any kindness or even a smile. He longed to forgive them but he never did as he had no reason to, he longed to make friends but he was never able to.

Figurative devices

• “Who threw words like stones” the words the boys use where harsh and hurt when they would say them.
• “muscles like iron” they boys were strong and Spence may have not been strong enough to fight them off so to him they were much stronger than him and it would hurt to be hit by them.
• “Like dogs to bark at my world” not literal dogs but they were loud and unrelenting like dog’s barks frightening and offensive getting ready to attack.
• “the salt coarse pointing of those boys” salt is rough and salt in wounds sting. The pointing by the boys would point and it would hurt emotionally for spencer.
• “While I looked the other way” an allusion to Jesus turning the other cheek as a form of forgiveness, like Spencer wanting to forgive the boys.

Possible Themes 

• Parent-Child Relationship
• Childhood Experiences
• Forgiveness

5 thoughts on “My Parents by Stephen Spender Analysis”

Thank u for this information it was very helpful

thnk u guyzthis summary is helpful

This is very helpful thanks

Very enlightening, thank you.

Nice summery it very clear

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by  Stephen Spender

My parents kept me from children who were rough Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes Their thighs showed through rags they ran in the street And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams. I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron Their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys Who copied my lisp behind me on the road. They were lithe they sprang out behind hedges Like dogs to bark at my world. They threw mud While I looked the other way, pretending to smile. I longed to forgive them but they never smiled.

Summary of My Parents

• Popularity of “My Parents”: Stephen Spender, a famous poet and novelist, wrote ‘My Parents’. It was first published in the 19 th The poem is about childhood games, bullying and making friends. It also illustrates the parent’s love and their protective instinct for their children. However, its popularity lies in the phenomenon of parental love.
• “My Parents” As a Criticism on Society: This poem is written from the perspective of a young child. The child’s parents restrict him and keep him away from the rough children, fearing they will make fun of him. The poet presents a graphic picture of the street children, which justifies the stance of his parents. They are rough in their manners and appearances. However, the speaker is envious of their freedom. He adores the way they play freely in the street without any restrictions. Also, he praises their iron muscle, which shows that he is physically weak as compared to them. Therefore, his parents never allow him to take part in an activity that invites hatred and bullying. Thus, the poem highlights an inevitable gap that exists among different classes of societies. The parents want to safeguard their son from the negativity, and the speaker wants to liberate himself from the clutches of restrictions.
• Major Themes in “My Parents”: Bullying, the gap between social classes and parent’s love are the major themes of the poem. The poet presents two things in the poem: parents concern for their child, and the child’s wish for freedom. His parents never permit him to mingle with the street boys, and they have reasons for that. But, the poet thinks that his freedom is snatched in the name of protection. Therefore he tries to give those street children a positive gesture, forgetting their bad behavior with him, but they never respond to him positively.

Analysis of Literary Devices in “My Parents”

literary devices are tools the writers use to create meanings in their texts to enhance the poems or stories and connect the readers with the real message of the text. Stephen Spender has also given this poem depth and clarity with the appropriate use of these literary devices . The analysis of some of the devices used in this poem is given below.

• Alliteration : Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line such as the sound of /c/ in “And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams”.
• Imagery : Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example, “Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes”; “Their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms” and “Their thighs showed through rags they ran in the street.”
• Enjambment : It is defined as a thought or clause that does not come to an end at a line break and is continued in the next line. For example,

“Their thighs showed through rags they ran in the street And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.”

• Hyperbole : Hyperbole is a device used to exaggerate a statement for the sake of emphasis. For example, “I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron.” This statement shows how greatly he fears them.
• Simile : It is a figure of speech used to compare something with something else to make the meanings clear. There is one simile used in the fourth line, “I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron”. He compares their muscles with iron.

A careful glimpse of this analysis shows that with the help of literary devices Stephen Spender has effectively conveyed a simple message through this poem.

Analysis of Poetic Devices in “My Parents”

Poetic and literary devices are the same, but a few are used only in poetry. Here is the analysis of some of the poetic devices used in this poem.

• Stanza : A stanza is a poetic form of some lines. There are three stanzas in this poem each comprises four lines in it.
• Quatrain : Quatrain is a four-lined stanza borrowed from Persian poetry. Here each stanza is quatrain.
• Rhyme Scheme : There is no specific rhyme scheme in this poem.

Quotes to be Used

The lines quoted below can be used when teaching kids about a parent’s love. These can also be used to teach why parents put some restriction on them.

“My parents kept me from children who were rough Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes Their thighs showed through rags they ran in the street And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.”

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CSEC English B: My Parents by Stephen Spender Poem Analysis

Updated: Jun 7, 2021

Stephen Spender

My parents kept me from children who were rough

Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes

Their thighs showed through rags they ran in the street

And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.

I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron

Their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms

I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys

Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.

They were lithe they sprang out behind hedges

Like dogs to bark at my world. They threw mud

While I looked the other way, pretending to smile.

I longed to forgive them but they never smiled.

In the poem, the persona recalls a childhood where his parents kept him from 'rough' children. His parents hope to protect him from the derision and harassment of these children, which, throughout the poem, is shown to be true. However, it becomes evident that in keeping him from these children (likely of a lower social class than he is), his parents greatly restrict his freedom, and he is jealous of the freedom that these rough children possess. In titling the poem My Parents and then only mentioning his parents once before speaking about bullying , the persona seems to both blame his parents for his lack of freedom and him being the target of the children's abuse. But, he also seems to appreciate their protection, as the rest of the poem essentially proves his parents right. They play in the street and climb cliffs and swim in rivers with no constraint. He feared these children and their abrasive nature; their vituperative words and seemingly insurmountable strength. Even in this fear though, there is an admiration of their strength that far surpasses his own. Nonetheless, they would tease him constantly, mocking his lisp while pointing reproachfully. The persona seems deeply troubled by their endless torment and abuse. He pretends to smile, hoping to inspire some form of peace and fraternity, but to no avail. He always longed to forgive them for their harassment, but is denied when they do not reciprocate any desire for harmony. The persona and the children are of different socioeconomic classes; the children, lower class and the persona, middle-to-upper class. Thus, there is a divide between them, and their mockery of him is suggested to have a separate motivation other than simple childish badinage- they are jealous of his privilege. The persona himself is jealous of the rough children's freedom even though his social class permits him far more privilege than they have. This is the implicit irony of the poem.

The mood of this poem is reflective. The themes include childhood experience, parental influence and social segregation.

"My parents kept me from children who were rough"

The persona begins with a somewhat accusatory phrase. His parents restrained him from being near the 'children who were rough' as a preventative measure. They do not want him to be teased and mocked for his disabilities, and the abrasive nature of these children justifies their worry. Describing them as rough instantly creates a contrast between the children and the persona himself, as his parents' effort to keep him from them means that he himself is not like them. The use of the word ' kept' implies that sort of childish resentment that the persona would have felt as a child, wanting to experience the same freedom as these children but held back nonetheless.

"Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes

And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams."

The rough children are said to throw 'words like stones.' This simile gives the reader insight into the character and behaviour of these children, as their use of words is compared to the destructive act of throwing stones. Their words, therefore, are used with the intention to harm emotionally in the same way stones are thrown with the intention of causing physical destruction. The sharp, monosyllabic language used in the simile communicates a harsh use of words without etiquette characteristic of the lower class.

The children wear torn clothes, another indicator of their less than fortunate status. Despite this suboptimal economic status, the children are able to explore and play uninhibited. They run in the street, climb cliffs and swim in streams; all things that our dear persona could never dream of doing. His overprotective parents keep him from both these children and their carefree, unrestricted lifestyle. He is envious of them, and wishes to enjoy the same wonders of freedom as they do. An alliteration is used here in ' c limbed c liffs.' This shows the agility of these children, and sort of portrays them in an animalistic and primitive light in their scaling of natural landscapes. Their thighs are said to show 'through rags,' rags being a symbol of poverty and communicating their poorer status in comparison to the persona.

"I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron

Their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms"

Using hyperbole , the persona communicates how great his fear was of these boys. Tigers are able rip a human limb from limb with sheer animalistic instinct and power, but he still places his fear of their muscles above that (hence why it is an exaggerated expression). Coupled with the use of simile to compare their muscles to the rigid strength of iron, the persona conveys a very exaggerated fear along with a possible amount of admiration of their strength. Being of a lower working class, they would perform more manual labour and explore more, giving them physical strength far beyond the reach of the persona.

We also see the harassment he is subjected to, as he is pinned to the ground during some sort of fight. He is made the victim of this torment, and it is possibly because of how different he is from them. His superior social status is a likely cause, along with his disability mentioned later on in the poem.

"I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys

Who copied my lisp behind me on the road."

The persona now states that he feared their 'salt coarse pointing.' This metaphor directly compares their pointing to the coarseness of salt. The use of coarse continues the description of the children as rough, but it also gives a tangibility to the derision of the boys. The persona feels their mockery to be coarse and harsh, inflicting a near-physical abrasion that goes beyond some sort of friendly badinage. By saying salt coarse, it also alludes to a common phrase ' rub salt into the wound. ' Although it is a bit of a stretch, their mockery, on top of forcing him into compromising positions in fights, is like rubbing salt into an open wound, as he experiences the emotional fallout as well as the physical.

The boys copy his lisp behind him on the road, showing that his speech impediment is a point which they use to mock him. His disability is therefore one of the things that make him a prime target of these rough children.

"They were lithe they sprang out behind hedges

While I looked the other way, pretending to smile."

The persona continues to describe their incessant harassment of him. They are lithe and agile, and he is not. Using simile , he compares them to dogs, "springing out behind hedges like dogs to bark at my world." Dogs usually bark to threaten intruders or those they think do not belong. In the same way, like animals, the children jump out at him and threaten him and his highly privileged world. Throughout their mud-throwing he would pretend to smile, as though unperturbed by this torment. He hopes to inspire some form of friendliness through this peaceable smiling.

"I longed to forgive them but they never smiled."

Even though he wants to forgive them for the torment they cause him, they never reciprocate this desire, nor do they return a smile. The difference in their social classes causes the children to envy his fortune while he envies their freedom. These strong societal barriers of envy and jealousy create vitriol between them that cannot easily be overcome.

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This is literally the most helpful summary I've seen online, thank you so much.

much appreciated haha. literature exam tomorrow

This is a good summary thank you so much

UNIQUE CRITIQUES

LITERARY ANALYSIS by DAISY MAY KNIGHT

NOTES: ‘My Parents’ by Stephen Spender

• ‘threw words like stones’ -> Before anything, we are hit by the simplicity of the simile: it is shockingly infantile and child-like, and this is what Spender wants us to notice. This aids us visualise a young boy experiencing what is expressed in the poem. It also incites an immediate reaction within us as there are no complicating words nor meaning masking the genuine feeling of being wounded and hurt emotionally and physically: its rawness stings us. Plunging into the technicalities the noun ‘stones’ presents the hostility he faces with these being thrown: ‘threw’ suggests they are being aimlessly hurled, referring both to the stones and insults. Throwing words implies these other boys are perhaps either flinging these words at him thoughtlessly without considering the damage they may cause him or they are not using words properly, hence hurting him less than if they had been more precise and personal – this is to say, the words are loosely called out to Spender and may or may not hit home as the boys’ language is inaccurate and may infer they do not value them as weapons, instead using their limbs to harm him. Could this childish language subconsciously depict that even he feels his desire for complete socialism is a childlike dream?
• ‘they ran in the street/ And climbed cliffs and’ ‘muscles like iron’ -> Spender here with the first quotation implements enjambment and listing to elongate the idea of them going on adventures: it gives it a longing tone, we sense the speaker wishes he could exercise as much as them and be as physically agile. The first stanza only contains one full stop, and for the most part it describes these children’s activities; the lack of punctuation and repetition of ‘and’ makes their lives seem full of excitement and also emphasises the relative freedom they possess which the speaker enviously implies he does not. When the poet describes that they ‘climbed cliffs’ the alliteration sounds almost onomatopoeic, like a challenging trek. Whilst resentful and intimidated by them, the speaker seems to admire their prowess nonetheless.
• ‘thighs’ ‘tigers’ ‘lithe’ ‘tight’ -> He views them as ‘tigers’: indicative of their place in the food chain – the predators at the top; this shows he thinks of them as beautiful, majestic and dangerous. The other words hold something not so obvious behind them: these express a secret sexual attraction he does not address, perchance because he was not aware that was what he was feeling or he did not understand it and was afraid as much as by these feelings as by the boys themselves. We note that perhaps through his younger self’s memories he uses them to communicate his political views on socialism: the admiration and near infatuation he expresses for these lower-class children – ‘My parents kept me from children who were rough’ – and for how they were able to do more things than he, a higher-class citizen attacks the capitalist categorisation of people by their income level and rather than their classification simply as human. In this case, he indirectly criticises his parents for doing precisely this.

FORM/STRUCTURE:

• ‘street’ ‘rough’ ‘clothes’ ‘streams’ -> He uses free verse which could be Spender’s way of trying to modernise society and forwarding its thinking by using an unusual to the times poetic style. It may also be the speaker attempting to break free from the constraints of his parents, using free verse to rebel – within the margin – and go against his parent’s wishes, just like he contradicts them in his feelings on separation of classes, or the reason for different classes to exist at all.
• ‘, pretending to smile. I longed to forgive them but they never smiled.’ -> If we look closely at the punctuation, we note there are is one full stop per stanza until the last one: there is a caesura in the penultimate line of the last stanza. Here it is signalling the ending of a memory with a final impacting sentence and also lengthening the effect of the liberty the others have. We see in this final line the summary of whole poem: he longed to be like the boys as much he feared and reproached them for their actions towards him; he was attracted to them as well as their style of life but they never accepted him – proven when they didn’t smile back. This final sentence separated by two full stops symbolises the social divide between classes and the permanence and wrongness of this is emphasised.
• ‘I feared’ ‘I feared’ ‘They’ –> The use of repetition emphasises how scared he got each time it happened, and it never got less frightening: the fact he says this at the beginning to convey the already overriding emotion in his life, before any action of theirs he feels is terror. It reinforces the feeling of him being the prey in this food chain of the fittest, his aloneness is made clear and them hunting him down, catching up and getting closer. As much as he tried, he can never truly befriend them as they are distant, living in a different world with different values and different customs. This could be a social criticism of the education of the upper-classes: although they received high calibre academic education, they got nothing in terms of physicality, or maybe he is just very bitter about his clubbed foot which meant he missed out on a lot of activities and meant he couldn’t do much exercise and is resentful. He fears them as they had such different lifestyles and he feared how much he longed to have that lifestyle himself, perhaps they encompass his hidden fears: of being left behind and of there being too large a difference between people.
• ‘like dogs to bark at our world’ ‘kept’ -> In the whole poem, the speaker is the antithesis to everything the other children are, as shown by this clear divide marked by the barrier ‘at’, separating them – ‘dogs to bark’ – and him – ‘our world’. They are coarse yet agile whereas he is inferred to be, without stating any of it: weak, pale and passive rather than active. In the first line his parents ‘kept’ him from playing with them and perhaps even from forming part of their clique which made them turn on him as he was the loner: the verb ‘kept’ is restrictive, and Spender almost accuses his parents of deliberately trapping him and isolating him from the rest of the world – justifying how he seems to live in his own bubble ‘our world’. It may have been this which made him so hell-bent on socialism: he blames them and their snobbery for the separation of social class and the cause of the bullying he suffers from. Yet even so, he identifies with them ‘our’; or perhaps it is ‘our’ the Bloomsbury group’s world that he formed part of with other rich upper class poets in London.  He may even imply that the bullies were not the children who knew no better as they hadn’t received a proper education (which really is what is so enticing to Spender), but the system which prevented them from getting a proper one to show them what is right and what wrong. So, the bullies are instead the rich, and the victims are the lower-classes and the collateral damage like Spender, victim of their lack of education.

LINKS TO OTHER LITERATURE:

• ‘The Temple’ by Stephen Spender : Here he more openly discusses homosexuality, and how it was more open in Germany that possessed a less narrow minded culture than England, showing how he felt restricted by English society.

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My Parents, Stephen Spender Poem Analysis/Annotations

• December 30, 2018

My Parents, Stephen Spender

FULL POEM - SCROLL DOWN FOR LINE-BY-LINE ANALYSIS​

My parents kept me from children who were rough

Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes

Their thighs showed through rags they ran in the street

And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams.

I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron

Their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms

I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys

Who copied my lisp behind me on the road.

They were lithe they sprang out behind hedges

Like dogs to bark at my world. They threw mud

While I looked the other way, pretending to smile.

I longed to forgive them but they never smiled.

LINE-BY-LINE ANALYSIS

Spender’s use of words saying that his ‘parents kept me’ immediately conveys his parents control and his weakness which sets the scene for his childhood.

The simile ‘threw words like stones’ paints a careless picture of the rough children and describes their insensitivity to the boy.

The imagery of ‘rags’ is a symbol of poverty (the boys are of a lower class than him) and the ‘running’ is a symbol of childhood and primitiveness

The alliteration of ‘climbed cliffs’ stresses the haste of the boys and once again the imagery portrays them in an animalistic, undeveloped way.

The Hyperbole here shows the extent of how afraid the boy is of these boys. The simile of ‘their muscles like iron’ further emphasises the intimidation he feels.

‘jerking hands’ is an unnatural image of the boys which shows how far removed their lifestyles are from him. The ‘knees tight on my arms’ is imagery of a previous fight, the first hint that the boys are dangerous to him.

The ‘salt coarse’ image links back to the roughness of the boys and is an allusion to the phrase ‘salt in the wound’ and further emphasises the pain or potential pain they cause him. 

The ‘salt in the wound’ phrase further links to his ‘lisp’ which is his exposed wound. We learn of the boys psychological torment on top of the physical torment.

‘Lithe’ is defined as “(especially of a person’s body) thin, supple, and graceful” and, once again, elucidates the physical prowess of the boys and their indimidating nature as they ‘sprang out behind hedges’ which eludes to them jumping out and scaring the boy.

This simile describes the boys like ‘dogs’ and is an example of animalistic imagery which dehumanises them and further emphasises the divide between the boys and him. The use of words ‘my world’ symbolises how the boys are attacking his higher socioeconomic class rather than him himself, a class given to him by his parents.

This line illustrates how the boy is afraid to even confront the boys with eye contact and he attempts to lesser the divide between him and the boys by ‘pretending to smile’ and make them think he shares their humour and isn’t totally different.

Spender’s use of the word ‘longed’ shows the desperation of the boy to be accepted by them but ‘they never smiled’ which, in this case, is a metaphor for their acceptance of him, shifting the blame of their divide onto the boys.

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• GCSE Edexcel

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