An Analysis “a Father's Words for a Lost Child” by Suhaimi Haji Muhammad

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Ballad of a father’s compassion: An Analysis “A Father's Words for a Lost Child” by Suhaimi Haji Muhammad A father’s words for a lost child by Suhaimi Haji Muhammad dramatizes the conflict between a father and his lost child. The speaker who is the father expresses his lament and grieves towards his child who runs away from home. He senses that his child feels deep shame over what has happened to her. Despite his frustration towards his daughter, the speaker is trying to console his daughter by persuading her that she is still pure and innocent. She is just the victim of the wild and outrageous world. The speaker seems to be persuading his daughter as he uses words like come home, don’t wait and stay away. As for Suhaimi's poem, it dwells in the past events where the speaker keeps on telling and reminding his daughter of her past doings and mistakes and this continues until the very end of the poem. It serves as a reminder as well as a lesson for her to remember. In this poem, the speaker brilliantly plays with variety of poetic devices which ultimately aid in highlighting certain issues and contribute to the understanding of the poem as a whole. Firstly, the element of metaphor plays a huge role in portraying certain ideas and subject matters in the poem. Suhaimi Mohammad is vividly using elements of nature like plants to make referent to the girl. By giving the reader something concrete to compare with, the metaphor clarifies the description of the object that it compares. Though the use of metaphor is not directly stated, the readers can retrieve the meaning behind it by simply connecting the object to its reference. For example, the speaker describes her daughter as “She is a tree, a garden” where it may bring meaning that his daughter is a beautiful, fertile and attracting person. The next example is “The city is a jungle” that connotes a city that is

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