In Morris’ ‘Little Boy Crying’ and Spender’s ‘My parents’ each poem explores childhood experiences.

In
‘My parents’ the persona (child) is longing to experience what it is like to play with other kids preferably
the boys in the street when his parents won’t allow him to, his experience is more of a want considering
the situation he’s in with his overprotective parents and in ‘Little Boy Crying’ the persona (child) has
been playing in the rain which he liked because he was laughing until his father hit him which was
recognized from line 2 of the poem that states, “your laughter metamorphosed into howls” so this
child’s experience is not a good one even though he was happy playing in the rain. Furthermore, the
child in ‘Little Boy Crying’ feels anger for his father so he imagines revenge so much as to imagining his
father as the ogre from the story Jack and the Beanstalk with him seeing himself as Jack chopping down
the tree for the ogre to fall to his death but however in ‘My parents’ the child resents the other boys but
envies their unfretted freedom, the child sees his parents as overprotective and people with such middle
class because they kept him from the other kids because as stated in lines 2 & 3 stanza 1 of the poem,
“……. Who wore torn clothes”… “Their thighs showed through rags…they ran in the street”, the parents
did this because they thought the boys were poor and would be a negative influence on their son. In
both poems the literary device of contrast was used, however different things were being contrasted for
example; in ‘Little Boy Crying’ the child’s world contrasts to the adult world and the difference is shown
by their perception of the situation that was taking place. The childish world is governed by the desire to
play, the child reacts to correction by crying and hate but in the adult world the parent sees potential
danger and tries to protect the boy and the adult is able to hide his emotions. In ‘My parents’ there was
a different sense of contrast as the persona and the boys had a contrast between them. The persona
seems to be everything the boys are not. Eg. The boys wore torn ragged clothes throwing words like
stone, it can be inferred that the persona is well dressed and mannered. The persona also seems weak
compared to the boys “muscles of iron” yet friendly and forgiving towards the boys open hostility.