Poetry Analysis on the Lame Goat

379 Words2 Pages
The lame goat is a story of deep meaning that is trying to be portrayed by the author. The author is trying to portray one big moral or ideal through this story. At first sight this story looks like one of those random write whatever you want kind of poems. But at second look you can see that it is much, much more. You can see that there are many different interpretations to this story. The first stanza shows a picture about a group of goats traveling to a body of water. This not only shows the setting of the story, it also shows what is happening. The second stanza introduces our protagonist the lame goat. He depicts the goat as a casual dreamy kind of goat that lags behind. He shows how he is the one in the back of the herd. Then the attitude of the story changes in the third stanza. It shows that the goats are worried about whether or not he is qualified for the back. Then the change comes when he says the herd starts laughing. In these three stanzas the author explains what was happening. The fourth stanza is when the story really begins. Here he starts to explain the purpose or ideal he is trying to convey. The author says how the lame goat starts out on the back and last but when the herd returns the goofy lame goat is leading. During the fifth and sixth stanza the author straight out expresses his ideals by talking about the variety of knowledge. Then he uses a metaphor to compare the lame goat’s knowledge to a branch that traces back to the roots of presence. Finally he concludes by telling us to take the lame goat as a role model and lead our own herd’s home. In conclusion the purpose of this story was to express his ideal that “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” I believe that the message of this story is that we too must learn to lead the people home. Also that being at the back is better than in the front, so that we can learn from
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