"My Son, My Executioner" by Donald Hall page367

Symbolism is a crucial element in Donald Hall’s poem My Son, My Executioner. This poems main focus is on a child entering the world and in a sense taking the parents life. Once a child is born the parent must sacrifice quite a bit and give up their old life, so that they are able to focus on caring for their baby. One line reads “Your cries and hungers document our bodily decay” this is symbolic of parents giving up themselves so their child can be happy and healthy. It is demanding to devote yourself to your child and make them the most important thing in your life. The entire poem is full of symbols of the challenging job of caring for a baby and once a child enters the world your life is now dedicated to them and all you have ,you give to them. In stanza one it says “Quiet and small and just astir, and whom my body warms” symbolic of the parents physical obligation to the child. The parent must provide the child with everything they need and that wares down the parent this job is demanding. This poem is a pessimistic outlook on parenthood, for it is saying that symbolically the new life of a child is the parents death.

Hall’s poem also contains quite a bit of irony, including the overall message of the poem. In stanza two line one says “Sweet death, small son, our instrument of immortality” this contains two elements of irony. The first being “sweet death” for death to most people is far from sweet, and one must search for the poems meaning to understand this quote. Hall is really saying that death is sweet, for after a lifetime of giving up your life to another being, death becomes life, and the place where you are no longer sacrificing for another person, “instrument of immortality”. The parent is forced to give life, and in a sense die for their child and death offers more life to someone who is in a sense not living their own life anymore, where everything that is yours becomes your child’s including yourself. This may seem untrue, however, it is just exaggerated to make the point that being a parent is very difficult and it takes your life, while demanding a great deal from you. Now if one observes the title, “My Son, My Executioner” this seems very ironic, for a child is supposed to be a symbol of new life but here it is a symbol of death, setting the general feeling of the poem to be ironic. The irony can be found all throughout this poem and is even present in the overall meaning, that parenthood is in many ways the death of the parent as an individual.

"My Son, My Executioner" is based solely on the idea that once a individual becomes a parent, they are not living their own life, but rather they are giving all they have to their child. One line says "whom my body warms" meaning that the parent is providing the child with all they need, constantly taking from the parent. Hall exaggerates by speaking of death as a way to regain the life the parent lost when they had a child, but he is simply saying that when the parent dies they will no longer have to share all they have with their child. This poem offers a bleak outlook on becoming a parent, and really only describes the sacrifice and demanding aspects of parenthood. I felt that this poem's main point is to show the hardships and devotion that comes along with becoming a parent and bringing a new life into the world. Although this poem is a bit pessimistic, I found it beautiful, for it describes the hardships that accompany parenthood. All the sacrifices a parent must make represent the love for the child, and willingness to give the child all they need or want.