Analysis Of Corn Grinders By Sarojini Naidu

If you ask me, I just wonder how the title of the poem relates with the context; probably the title might be symbolic.

Corn Grinders by Sarojini Naidu, is an elegy where the voice in the recounts the sorrowful feelings of multiple bereaved entities. The mouse, the deer, and the bride are the victim of bereavement as shown in stanza 2, 4, 6.

In a question-and-answer form, the voice of the poem posed questions to the victims which in their responses revealed to the readers their plights and the reasons behind their cries all through the night;
stanza 1, 3, and 5 are instances of the varying questions asked.

Structurally, the refrains in the poem are couplets while the other non-couplets are equal stanzas of seven lines patterned abbacca. The poem has both rural and nighttime setting. According to the second stanza, the male mouse died of snare in a farmer's farm:
"Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
Ah, who will ease my bitter pain?
He went to seek a millet-grain
In the rich farmer's granary shed;
They caught him in a baited snare,
And slew my lover unaware:
Alas! alas! my lord is dead"

The poet dominated the poem with rhetorical questions both in the couplets and the broader stanzas of the poem. Not only that, there are refrains "Alas! alas! my lord is dead!" which add a lyric flavour to the poem. Personification in line 2 "While merry stars laugh in the sky". Instance of rhetorical question is stanza 5 "O little bride, why dost thou weep/ With all the happy world asleep?" Metaphor in line 25 "My soul burns with the quenchless fire" and alliteration in line 26 "That lit my lover's"

The painful effect of death, the importance of marriage or having a lover, the positive impact of husband, etc. The poem shows the victims with the sorrows of how to fill the void of their lovers:
"Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
Ah, who will stay these hungry tears,
Or still the want of famished years,
And crown with love my marriage-bed?
My soul burns with the quenchless fire
That lit my lover's funeral pyre:
Alas! alas! my lord is dead" (in accordance with stanza 6).

The poet, Sarojini Naidu, née Chattopadhyay was an Indian poet born between 1879 and 1949. Sarojini Naidu once served as the first governor of the United Province of Agra and Oudh. Many also refer to Sarojini as sobriquet.

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Samuel C. Enunwa aka samueldpoetry
(the Leo with wings flying)