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Summary The slave dealer by Thomas Pringle
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The slave dealer by Thomas Pringle Summary 'Type and Form Tone and Mood Type and Structure Themes
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1The slave dealer - Thomas Pringle
From ocean's wave a Wanderer came,
With visage tanned and dun:
His Mother, when he told his name,
Scarce knew her long-lost son;
So altered was his face and frame 5
By the ill course he had run.
There was hot fever in his blood,
And dark thoughts in his brain;
And oh! to turn his heart to good
That Mother strove in vain, 10
For fierce and fearful was his mood,
Racked by remorse and pain.
And if, at times, a gleam more mild
Would o'er his features stray,
When knelt the Widow near her Child, 15
And he tried with her to pray,
It lasted not - for visions wild
Still scared good thoughts away.
‘There's blood upon my hands!’ he said,
‘Which water cannot wash; 20
It was not shed where warriors bled -
It dropped from the gory lash,
As I whirled it o'er and o'er my head,
And with each stroke left a gash.
‘With every stroke I left a gash, 25
While Negro blood sprang high;
And now all ocean cannot wash
My soul from murder's dye;
Nor e'en thy prayer, dear Mother, quash
That Woman's wild death-cry! 30
‘Her cry is ever in my ear,
And it will not let me pray;
Her look I see - her voice I hear -
As when in death she lay,
And said, “With me thou must appear 35
On God's great Judgment-day!”’
, 2
‘Now, Christ from frenzy keep my son!’
The woeful Widow cried;
‘Such murder foul thou ne'er hast done -
Some fiend thy soul belied!’ - 40
‘- Nay, Mother! the Avenging One
Was witness when she died!
‘The writhing wretch with furious heel
I crushed - no mortal nigh;
But that same hour her dread appeal 45
Was registered on high;
And now with God I have to deal,
And dare not meet His eye!’ Type and Form
This poem is a ballad which retells a
Summary story of a son who returns home to his
The speaker highlights the subject of slavery from a mother after being away for a long-time
slave dealer’s point of view. The slave dealer is a doing slave trade. The poem has 8
person who deals with the sale of people from poor stanzas of 6 lines each. Each stanza has
to upper-class backgrounds and forcefully remove its own rhyme scheme.
and transport these people from their families to
other countries or continents
Type and Structure
• It is a ballad.
Tone and Mood
• It tells a dramatic,
The tone is remorseful as the speaker regrets his emotionally charged story.
misdeeds. The mood is sombre/sad/ angry: The • Each stanza consists of
three sets of rhyming
speaker’s mood is sombre as he experiences the agony
couplets and its regular
of being haunted by dreadful memories of what he has
rhythm gives it a songlike
done in the past. and then the harsh (silent) r sound
quality.
shows how these thoughts rip him apart. • The poem is divided into 8
stanzas of six lines each.
• Each stanza has three sets
of rhyming couplets; a set
rhyme scheme is followed
ABABAB /CDCDCD
/EFEFEF/etc., right to the
end.
• It is written in Iambic
pentameter.
• The poem is related from the
third person’s point of view.
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